Coworking spaces are known for the opportunities they provide for the budding entrepreneurs, freelancers, or even companies in providing a space where they can think and work together as a team and enjoy the harvest of the hard work they put in. Here we are discussing Coworking Space Positive Impact on our community, so go through the post for more details.
Coworking spaces provide a lot of advantages over the normal office spaces for their members. At the same time, these spaces can contribute a lot to the community around them.
Having to contribute to the local community in return will create a positive impact on the coworking spaces too. This will help you create your own identity among the local community, which will help you in the business too.
How coworking space can contribute to the local community?
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Here are the best ways a coworking space can contribute to the local community around them in the best possible ways.
1. Building up a connection with the local society
It is quite obvious that you might have the branches of your coworking space built in a pretty much accessible area with other local businesses running around you. It can be a cafe, a hotel service, a taxi centre etc.
It is important that you have a warm relationship with them as it can be helpful in many ways. Referring your customers to those shops can help them.
Whenever you need a bulk hand sanitiser order or you need to get cupcakes and coffee for all your staff, get it done from the local shops that surround you. When your client needs a taxi service to drop his client at the airport, seek help from your neighbour taxi centre. Decorate and make it fresh inside your coworking space with the flowers bought from the florist next door.
These will definitely bring a smile on their face and they will help you in your hardest times with a very fair discount or a new client with the mouth publicity they can provide you with.
2. Mentorship and scholarships
Just look at your coworking space. You see very skilled and highly talented industrial experts working day in and out!
Why don’t you make the best out of this opportunity?
Students in schools and colleges who are really involved and interested in learning about the cutting edge technology would really like to have a mentorship directly from the experts in your coworking space in their own niche of technology involved.
Either you can team up with already existing mentorship programmes and give an opportunity for your clients in the coworking spaces for being mentors.
Also Read: What is the Conversion Rate and how can you improve it?
Or you can start one on your own. Maybe, if the programmes are successful, you can try giving incentives to the mentors in the form of extra coffee, extra meeting hours or reduction in the rent.
This can also be used to provide internship opportunities for graduates or people undergoing gradation after detailed discussions with the teams working in your coworking spaces. They will get an extra worker to get their works done and the interns will get exposure.
Scholarships can also be given to students who are brilliant academically and practically in technology, which can be decided based on a hackathon, for example, at the coworking space itself.
3. To work with NGOs in times of crisis
There are different situations that happen in and around the society that will have the potential for help from a coworking space like yours.
Teaming up with NGOs and getting to help them to make the process a little better and lighter is the best thing you can do when it comes to lending a hand for the society.
You can conduct clothes and food drives where you ask the public to bring clothes and food that they want to donate at your coworking space, where you can sort them to send them to the needy with the help of the organisations. Many coworking space in Bangalore are tied up with the NGO and contribute regularly with them
You can provide free space at your coworking space for the NGOs to work during the hour of need.
4. Happy hours
Happy hours are one of the most interesting initiatives that a coworking space can take up. This will be the hour where they can either host a stand-up comedy show or a talent show event or do a free party.
The ticket price can be used to make donations, or buy survival packets for the homeless. The packets can be sorted by the coworking management or the workers of coworking space. This can imbibe the feeling of inclusion among the workers too.
5. Skill training workshops
If the locality has a high number of unemployed citizens, you can make arrangements for a skill training workshop that will help them get a job with decent pay.
You can use your connections in the community to provide them with opportunities. This can help them find a career and make their lives safe and secure for the future.
6. Being a connector
Being a coworking space owner, you would definitely know what your clients are dealing with, and what your clients would need.
When they need resources that can be satisfied within the coworking space, you will be able to connect them with the talents within the space.
When they need help from outside, you can be a connector to the local community outside, helping them grow with their local business too.
There have been many coworking spaces that have put their foot forward at the times of crisis and when they had to bring in their touch of fortune to the local community.
The coworking spaces who opened their doors for the public to take shelter and to pray in times of flood and crisis is one among the tales that coworking spaces have contributed to bringing a happy smile on the people.
A coworking space is a right example of a mix of society where people dwell in their works without the worries of differentiation and in harmony. With different cultures getting together, the lessons of co-existence and the necessity of the same is explained with the coworking space culture. The same sets as an example to the society outside.
Coworking spaces have great potential in creating a positive impact on the local community if used to the right potential. Involving in any of the local engagements will help you build on your social initiative side too.
