Coming Together by Giving Back

Coming Together by Giving Back
Building Relationships through Corporate Giving

Deck the halls, trim the tree, organize a company party and make sure that the plans for next year’s conferences are as carefully laid as the holiday banquet table. ‘Tis the season for meeting planners to be busy with celebrations, and a time when companies make their most generous charitable donations to national and local charities.

At Teneo Hospitality Group, we believe that giving back in the spirit of the holidays is certainly appropriate and can greatly benefit the company who is giving, even more than the recipient. Apart from being its own reward, corporate social outreach can raise a company’s profile, attract positive media and investor attention, enhance teamwork and build bridges between management, employees and the local community.

We believe that an innovative, well-planned social engagement program can do all this and much more. In fact, corporate giving is such a valuable tool, we have made it an integral part of our business model and a year ‘round effort. Our business is built on developing relationships between meeting planners and our hotel and DMC members who serve them. Our charitable outreach is designed to bring those groups together through a series of interactive events.

We host nearly 20 events per year in locations across the US and Latin America. Local meeting planners are invited to meet and network with Teneo member Hotel and DMC representatives. There’s great food, entertainment and a chance to help a local charity while networking at the same time. Since most of our charities are geared toward helping children in need, we designed back-to-school events, where we purchased backpacks and filled them with needed school supplies. These included pens, pencils, crayons, markers, notebooks, and paper. Planners are given a backpack to fill and go to each table, where they connect with a hotelier who then adds an item to the backpack until all backpacks are filled. It’s simple, fun and effective.

In some cases, instead of giving school supplies, we provided toiletries or pairs of shoes for children at local homeless shelters.

Most companies cannot donate millions of dollars. But we can create cost-effective programs that benefit local communities in a targeted and meaningful way, while involving our employees and clients.

This year, our programs have benefited at risk children in numerous US cities. Charities included Covenant House, Special Olympics and several local shelters and clothing programs for children in need. At our recent Summit in Puerto Vallarta, we contributed backpacks filled with necessities to two local charities that aid children.

The backpacks are both attractive and practical, and their contents are greatly appreciated. We donated 100 pairs of shoes to the St. Anthony Free Clothing Program in San Francisco – just in time for the kids’ return to school.

Our clients agree that these events are unique – and fun. “My personal award for Most Creative and Thoughtful Charity Event,” wrote one meeting planner. Said another, “I loved being part of something bigger in giving back to the community.”

In the New Year, we hope to expand our programs and partnerships, bringing more meeting professionals and Teneo members together, helping disadvantaged kids and leaving something meaningful behind in each place we visit.

About Teneo Hospitality Group

Teneo Hospitality Group is a leading professional group sales organization, representing over 300 hotels, resorts and destination management companies (DMCs) worldwide. Learn more about Teneo Hospitality Group.

Mike Schugt

Mike Schugt
President
Teneo Hospitality Group
Mike.Schugt@Teneohg.com