The Spirit of Giving
Restaurant owners receive requests for charitable donations daily. If you do not have a budget and process for these requests, you could find yourself donating yourself right out of business.  There are several processes that can be put in place to ensure that your donations are a win for the community and the restaurant as well.
The first thing you need to do is set a budget for the month, quarter, and the year as to how many donations you will be comfortable providing. Next, you can host events at your restaurants for organizations such as school teams or youth sports programs that will bring business into your restaurant. Donating a portion of sales that the organization brings can be a big sales boost if scheduled on a day that would normally be slow.  Your point-of-sale system should be able to track these sales for you providing a streamlined process for issuing the proceeds to the organization.
Creating a program for those who are looking to hold a smaller event, raising funds for someone in a health crisis can also be a win for everyone involved. For example, you could offer to host the event in your private room on an evening that it is not being used at no cost. You could offer to contribute to the silent auction they will be offering at the event and you let guests order off the menu. By doing this you will generate sales and the charity organizer and guests will most likely be posting the event on social media, thanking you and the restaurant for participating.
Partnering with organizations that work with restaurants to give back to community is a very simple and easy way to support your communities. A favorite of ours at Sync is GiftAMeal, an organization based in St. Louis with a truly inspiring founder, Andrew Glantz.
GiftAMeal is a program that as a restaurant you will subscribe to. In return GiftAMeal will donate a minimum number of meals to food pantries on your behalf. In addition, they will provide marketing materials to encourage your customers to take a picture of the meal they are having in your restaurant and post to social media. They will then donate additional meals for each post a customer makes. GiftAMeal has an app that your customers can search for restaurants participating in this program that encourages them to dine and donate with no cost to them. If you want more information, please reach out to Sync.