One of the main trends in the meetings industry during the past few years has been groups wanting to contribute to projects that have a lasting, positive impact to the destinations where they are gathering.
These efforts can help to establish friendly, long-term connections to the destinations while strengthening the cohesiveness of the business group. Here is a list, adapted from Bizbash.com, of five corporate social responsibility (CSR), team-building activities that are popular among meeting groups.
Homeless Support: Clean the World collects and recycles soap and hygiene products discarded by the hospitality industry and other sectors that generate environmental waste. This organization offers a team-building event in which groups can help build hygiene kits for those in need. The kits are later distributed where they are needed, such as to homeless shelters, aid groups.
Developing Nations: Impact 4 Good coordinates many types of team-building activities, some of which directly help people in need in various countries. For example, in the U.S.-Mexico border community of Mexicali, teams take part in a scavenger hunt and then construct beehive frames that are donated to women there who use them to produce and sell beauty products, candles, baked goods, bee pollen and more.
Recycling and Environmental Education: Impact 4 Good’s Go Green Racing program tasks teams with create solar cars from kits, as well as from materials used and thrown away every day across the country. The cars, along with new solar car kits and a solar classroom curriculum, are subsequently donated to a local school that uses them to teach about energy conservation and alternative methods of transportation.
Children in Need: Feeding Children Everywhere is a social charity that empowers and mobilizes people to assemble healthy meals for hungry children. The program offers a team-building activity known as Hunger Projects, which provide high-energy and hands-on opportunities for groups to take action against global hunger. Volunteers have a sense of making a difference while building skills such as efficiency, organization and inclusivity.
Rescue Animals: Charity Team Building, which coordinates many team-building activities, offers Happy Trails, a workshop designed to help animals in need in local communities. Donations can be made to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a local pet shelter or a program of the group’s choosing. Participants in the workshop work as teams as they put together care packages full of items such as food bowls, collars, chew toys and other essentials for rescue pet adopters.
