Is your corporate social responsibility program customizable?

One-size-fits-all impact programs rarely meet the needs of an entire business. Consider the credit union industry: while all credit unions work on benefiting their community, the specific challenges and priorities can vary significantly based on your local footprint. For instance, a credit union in a rural area might focus on supporting agriculture families and local schools, while a credit union in a bustling urban center might prioritize addressing food insecurity and youth development programs. Tailoring programming to fit the unique local needs and resources is vital to building a successful corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative.

Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals (CMN Hospitals) is fortunate to have smart corporate fundraising partners, including the credit union industry, who set the gold standard for creating effective, customized CSR programs. The rest of this article examines, at a high level, the innovative work that Costco, Dairy Queen, and Ace Hardware do to customize their CSR programs, offering valuable insights for credit unions looking to enhance their community impact.

Let’s start with Costco Wholesale. They focus heavily on small businesses as a core segment of their audience. To better engage this segment, Costco modified a popular CMN Hospitals’ fundraiser. Instead of solely offering the standard six-inch cobranded balloon marker, which typically garners $1 donations from members, Costco also sold 47-inch cobranded balloon icons for $500 each. This strategic adjustment appealed to small businesses seeking a more substantial way to give. As a result, sales of the jumbo balloons contributed approximately $1.9 million to the 2023 campaign and $1.4 million in 2024, representing roughly 3.5% of the total funds raised. This example underscores the power of tailoring fundraising initiatives to specific audience segments, allowing for broader community engagement and increased support for our shared mission.

Other businesses have also devised signature events to drive engagement and excitement. Dairy Queen’s Miracle Treat Day, for example, is a single-day fundraising event during which each Blizzard treat sale at participating locations results in a donation of $1 or more to CMN Hospitals. In 2023, over 88% of Dairy Queen franchisees participated, raising over $1.7 million.

This model of a dedicated, high-engagement event has even inspired collaborations within the credit union industry, such as the partnership between Kelly Community FCU in Texas and local Dairy Queen locations—demonstrating the potential for diverse organizations to align for community impact. Learn more here.

My colleague, Julie Breckenkamp, our VP of Corporate Partnerships, aptly describes the campaign’s value for DQ: “Aside from crucial fundraising, Miracle Treat Day increases social good awareness, reinforcing local community impact, driving food traffic, accelerating customer and employee engagement, and positively enhancing local and national brand awareness.” This illustrates how a well-designed signature event can create significant benefits for both the partner and the local community.

Ace Hardware demonstrates a different yet highly effective approach to community engagement through its annual “Miracle Bucket Days” event, held the first weekend of August. This initiative invites customers to donate $5 to local children’s hospitals in exchange for a five-gallon bucket and 20% off everything that fits inside the bucket. In 2024, the initiative raised over $800,000 for local member hospitals, demonstrating the generosity of Ace Hardware’s customers and their willingness to support a worthy cause.

Beyond the significant funds raised, “Miracle Bucket Days” also generated tangible business benefits for participating Ace Hardware stores, which saw a lift in sales and basket size. This underscores how aligning business goals with social impact can create a win-win scenario for companies and the communities they serve.

Ace Hardware also leverages the event to foster employee engagement and team spirit. The annual Miracle Bucket Display Contest encourages stores to highlight their creativity by designing unique and eye-catching bucket displays. This friendly competition not only adds an element of fun but also reinforces the company’s commitment to its philanthropic partnership with local member hospitals through CMN Hospitals. Click here for a few fun examples.

While I recognize that credit unions might not start selling buckets or ice cream in their branches (though the thought is intriguing!), the innovative approaches of Costco, Dairy Queen, and Ace Hardware offer valuable inspiration for how credit unions can uniquely tailor their community impact initiatives. Whether it's understanding and engaging specific audience segments (Costco), creating signature, high-engagement events (Dairy Queen), or developing creative, customer-centric fundraising mechanisms with added internal engagement (Ace Hardware), each one provides success.

As you consider how to deepen your credit union’s community impact, I encourage you to reflect on the following questions:

By thoughtfully considering these questions and the diverse strategies employed by our partners, credit unions can continue to be a powerful force for good in their communities and for the children and families supported through CMN Hospitals.