nia avanna

Community engagement mistakes I’d love to wave goodbye to in 2025 👋 As we approach the new year, now is the perfect time to reflect on how your business engages with the local community. Genuine engagement starts with listening, understanding, and working together — not ticking boxes or chasing recognition. Let’s leave these behind in 2025: 🤔 Guessing what the community wants: Spoiler alert: assuming isn’t knowing. Before your next initiative, ask the community what they need. A quick survey, a chat, or attending local events can make all the difference. Listening first ensures your good intentions land as great ideas, not missed opportunities. 💸 Assuming donations are enough: Donating to local causes is fantastic, but it’s not enough on its own. Sure, making a contribution might tick the “good deed” box, but it should be just the start. If your business’s operations frustrate or harm the community, donations won’t smooth things over. Listen to local concerns, follow up on contributions, and ensure your efforts reflect actual needs. 🔄 Confusing community engagement with CSR, ESG, and social value: Community engagement is essential to CSR, ESG, and social value strategies, but it’s also a star player in its own right. Treating engagement as its own priority ensures your efforts are relevant, effective, and genuinely valued. Without meaningful engagement, those broader strategies risk falling flat as they won’t reflect what the community actually wants or needs. 🌟 The ‘all about you’ approach: We get it — your business does great things. But if your efforts feel more like self-promotion than genuine support, it’s time to rethink. Celebrate the charities, volunteers, and groups doing the heavy lifting — they’re the real stars. Sharing their successes shows you’re in it for the right reasons. 📢 Promotion with no punchline: If you’re sharing your efforts, don’t leave us hanging! Tell us why it matters. What’s the story behind your initiative? What difference did it make? A heartfelt explanation with clear outcomes goes further than a staged team photo. ✅ Prioritising appearances over impact: Trendy campaigns might grab attention, but are they actually helping? Sometimes the less glamourous efforts — like supporting food banks, running workshops, or partnering with schools — deliver the most benefit. Community engagement isn’t about quick wins or superficial gestures, it’s about building genuine relationships and being a force for good in the communities you operate in. Let’s make 2025 the year we focus on listening, learning, and working together, leaving behind the surface-level efforts for something far more rewarding. What do you think businesses should do differently to engage with the community in 2025? Let’s me know in the comments! 👇

While community engagement can bring significant benefits, your business might not be quite ready to take the leap just yet. Here’s why: 🔴 You’re unsure which local causes or projects are the right fit for your business. 🔴 Your team isn’t equipped to manage feedback or build the connections this approach requires. 🔴 You’re worried about opening a can of worms by inviting feedback from the community. 🔴 You’re not sure where to start or how to take the first step. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! Download our free Community Engagement Launch Plan and get the tools you need to start building a strategy that works for your business. Click the link to get your free guide and take the first step toward connecting with your local community. 🔗https://lnkd.in/gE7xQ9Pj

🎄✨ Merry Christmas from Nia Avanna! ✨🎄 As 2024 comes to a close, we want to take a moment to thank you for being part of our journey. Your support and encouragement means so much. Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

As the year winds down, it's the perfect time to reflect on 2024 and think ahead to 2025. What went well? What could be better? And, most importantly, how can you make a bigger difference in the community around you next year? Our 'Community Engagement Launch Plan' is the perfect guide to help you assess where you are and take the next steps towards meaningful community engagement. Whether you're just starting out or ready to deepen your impact, this guide will set you up for success. Community engagement isn’t just about business benefits like attracting customers, boosting brand visibility, or forming new partnerships — though those are all valuable outcomes. It's also about doing the right thing. At this time of year, when giving back feels extra special, why not take that feeling into 2025 and make it a part of your business every day? 📥 Download the Community Engagement Launch Plan now and start planning your goals for 2025. 🔗https://lnkd.in/gE7xQ9Pj Follow us for more hints, tips, and insights as you prepare for the year ahead!

You get it, being seen as a socially responsible business makes good business sense, but how do you manage the additional cost? What if you could support your CSR efforts without allocating an additional budget? Last Christmas, while working for Tarmac, I suggested a different approach to their annual Christmas campaign. Instead of producing the usual cheerful festive film, we used the campaign to meet broader business goals – particularly around Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). In collaboration with Mates in Mind, a mental health charity for the construction industry, we created a short film highlighting the challenges that Christmas can bring and directing viewers to valuable mental health resources. This effort showed how existing business initiatives can be repurposed to achieve wider organisational goals while supporting industry objectives and engaging key stakeholders. But what did this achieve? For Tarmac: 🎄Customer attraction and retention: Enhanced visibility to customers and other stakeholders who value businesses investing in CSR as part of their standard practices. 🎄Strengthened reputation: Demonstrated commitment to industry-specific causes, enhancing its brand as a company that cares. 🎄 Employer of choice: Supported employees and attracted job seekers by prioritising mental health. 🎄Increased engagement: The film was watched 9,005 times on YouTube — a 1367% increase on the previous year’s film. Social media clicks, likes, and shares rose 1898%, with 1,030 new followers gained in December, showcasing a more effective use of the campaign budget. For Mates in Mind: 🎄Greater awareness: Utilising Tarmac’s platform helped increase their visibility across the construction industry. 🎄Website traffic growth: Visits to the charity’s website and their "Need Help" page doubled (+66%), with new users up 21%, enabling more people to access vital resources. 🎄Expanded audience reach: The charity saw 416 new followers join their social media platforms. Clicks, likes, and shares across their platforms grew by almost 40%. 🎄Direct impact: The campaign successfully guided individuals in need to mental health resources, enabling them to access crucial support during a challenging time. This approach met CSR objectives while creating lasting benefits for both organisations and their audiences. It demonstrates how businesses can effectively align existing budgets with initiatives that make a real difference, providing value to customers, employees, and communities. 🎥 Watch the Film: https://lnkd.in/etbynbBE In 2025, I will be launching a range of tools and services to help businesses enhance their community engagement and meet CSR goals, providing resources to address community needs while supporting the success of your business. 💌 Sign up to our mailing list https://lnkd.in/eUcXp9iN to stay informed and discover practical strategies for integrating CSR into your business.

I’m passionate about helping businesses improve their relationships with their local communities because I’ve seen the positive impact it can have. When businesses engage with their community, it can lead to: - Reduced resistance to operational changes.  - Loyal customers who value the business’s contribution.  - Stronger, more supportive relationships that benefit everyone involved. But I’m finding it difficult to connect with the people on LinkedIn who need my support. People don’t usually post about struggling to connect with their community, feeling unsure about how to implement a CSR strategy, or not knowing where to begin with charitable giving or volunteering. Instead, we mostly see the highlights and success stories, not the uncertainty or challenges that came before them. These challenges often go unspoken, yet they’re common. It’s not always easy to know where to start, how to connect with the right people, or how to ensure your efforts align with your goals. These are exactly the kinds of questions I can help answer. Community engagement, when done well, benefits more than just the community. It can help businesses: - Build trust and stand out in a competitive market.  - Attract and retain customers.  - Inspire pride and purpose among employees. If you know someone who is navigating these challenges, I’d love to help. Please feel free to share my posts or details with them or mention me or my business, nia avanna, to them directly. Together, we can work towards creating stronger connections with their communities and setting them up for a calmer, more successful 2025. Thank you for your support. 

What are you doing to support your local community this Christmas? 🎄 With Christmas just a week away, now is the perfect time to focus on giving back. Whether it’s organising a food or toy collection, volunteering with a local charity, or checking in on elderly neighbours, there are still plenty of ways to make a real difference. Businesses and individuals alike can help bring a little extra cheer to those around us ✨ We’d love to hear how you’ve been supporting your community this Christmas — share what you’ve been up to in the comments!

The festive season is a great time to get your team involved in supporting your local community🎅 There’s something special about bringing a team together to support the community, especially at Christmas. Volunteering at food banks, helping with gift wrapping for local charities, or assisting with events at schools or care homes are all fantastic ways to give back. It’s not just rewarding for those who receive the help — it’s a great way to strengthen bonds within your team and remind everyone of what the festive season is all about. What great about these initiatives is how they can be tailored to suit every business. Whether it’s giving employees time off to volunteer or encouraging donations to local causes, these efforts go a long way in making a real difference to those who need it most. 🌟Looking for ideas to get started? Check out our blog for ways to make this Christmas one to remember https://lnkd.in/e4ZrDEH9

How can your business support the community this Christmas? With the festive season in full swing, there are so many ways businesses can make a real difference. Why not sponsor a stall at a local Christmas fair, donate prizes for a raffle, or organise a food or toy collection? Small efforts can go a long way towards bringing the community together. 💡 Looking for inspiration? Check out our blog for practical ideas to help your business give back this Christmas https://lnkd.in/e4ZrDEH9

Not sure where to start when it comes to engaging with the local community? Our FREE Community Engagement Launch Plan is designed to help you get started with simple, actionable steps you can start implementing today. Whether you're new to community engagement or looking to refresh your strategy, this guide will show you how to: ➡️ Create stronger relationships with the local community ➡️ Build a positive reputation for your business ➡️ Take the first steps toward making community engagement a part of your everyday operations Download the guide today and start making a difference: https://lnkd.in/gE7xQ9Pj #communityengagment #community #engagement #socialvalue #corporatesocialresponsibility #CSR #ESG