Whether they are volunteering, helping fund community-based projects or working to strengthen public-private partnerships such as United Way, more companies are taking Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) seriously and investing in communities where they are located.

Here are some examples:

U.S. Bank works closely with United Way and its partners in communities across the United States to provide financial education, affordable housing and more. United Way is U.S. Bank’s largest grant recipient and sole partner of the annual employee giving campaign. Employees are encouraged to volunteer through eight hours of paid time off. In 2010, more than 36,000 employees volunteered.

Microsoft provides software and cash grants and employee fundraising—overall providing $14.3 million in cash, software and in-kind donations to United Way in 2010. Plus, when its employees volunteer more than 10 hours for an eligible organization (employees volunteered 363,000 hours last year), Microsoft provides a $17 matching donation for every volunteer hour.

Bank of America employees volunteered more than 1 million hours last year. The bank was also the first financial institution to support the United Way Financial Stability Partnership, with $4.5 million in grants over the past few years, plus employee volunteers, providing free tax preparation and filing assistance, resulting in $2 billion in total tax refunds, reinvested into communities.

Procter & Gamble works each year to touch and improve lives around the world through its partnership with United Way. Last year, P&G employees joined together to participate in more than 145 volunteer events. Since 2007, more than 300 million children worldwide have benefited from the company’s Live, Learn and Thrive Program.

Dominion granted $24 million and partnered with United Way to provide heating assistance in 2010. Last year, Dominion employees volunteered 150,000 hours.

To learn more, visit http://liveunited.org/soa.

Scary Numbers
Only 6 percent of small-business owners say they’re not at all confident about being adequately protected against a disaster, according to a survey conducted by Travelers at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce America’s Small Business Summit. That same survey found that 44 percent of small businesses are operating without any type of business continuity plan, a plan designed to keep the business operating after an unexpected event.

That false sense of security and lack of preparation could easily spell disaster for a business. One- quarter of small businesses hit by a major disruption never reopen their doors, according to the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety. Other data suggests that even if businesses did reopen, most wouldn’t fully recover.

The Solution
A strategic business continuity plan, combined with securing the right insurance coverage, is critical in making sure a business can continue to thrive after a disaster. Policies to consider include a standard multiperil or business owner’s policy and business interruption coverage. Business owners should also talk to their agents about additional options like flood coverage.

Formulating a business continuity plan, depending on the complexity of the business, may only take a few hours and can help ensure a business lasts years after a disaster.

The plan should include everything from important phone numbers of service providers to locations of backup data. For help getting started, business owners can visit http://www.travelers.com for free tips on developing a plan. These plans can provide the necessary road map to assist in handling a crisis, but they work best when communicated effectively and frequently with employees. Once a business continuity plan is developed, owners should walk employees through different scenarios that can significantly affect a business and explain how to manage the consequences.

Small businesses play a vital role in helping the nation’s economic recovery. Properly protecting a small business through risk management is essential to its long-term survival.

There are many good reasons for this. For one thing, it saves fuel. For another, it saves time and money for both employer and employee.

One thing making telecommuting easier is cloud computing. It involves several computers connected though the Internet or an Intranet. Together, they can reach out and retrieve data processed elsewhere. Now you can even add business voice service to the cloud through Voice over Internet Protocol, or “VoIP.” Essentially, the phone system works over the Internet rather than over traditional phone lines.

That means workers can be at home or on the road but appear to customers to be sitting in company headquarters.

One system that serves nearly 15,000 small businesses, many with multiple locations to be tied together via the Internet and their phone system, offers such features as:

• Business communications that can be provisioned quickly and grow as you grow
• The ability to let workers plug in and get working nearly anywhere they have a broadband connection
• Auto call attendant
• Music and messages on hold
• Call forwarding and follow me
• Different greetings according to the time of day and the day of week
• A dashboard that keeps track of real-time status of workers
• Extension-to-extension, click-to-call functionality
• Companywide directory
• Outlook integration
• Mobile command and control through iPhone and Android devices.

All that because the company, Vocalocity, specializes in bringing remote office workers together for virtual collaboration.

As one customer expressed it, “I unpacked the box, assembled the phones, plugged them in and they worked. It was a very simple process. With our headquarters being 3,000 miles away and having to travel a lot, I needed a phone system that worked and that I could count on having no troubles with. Vocalocity eliminated the need for any IT support in my company.”

Another, describing how handy the system was when an ice storm shut down his city for a week, said, “We forwarded all phones to our home the night before and remoted in with the computers. We might as well all have been in the office for the whole week.”

The storm had left many workers stranded at home and forced many businesses to lose a distressing week of work, sales, profits and production. Roads became ice-skating rinks and driveways became sledding terrains. Public transportation, the post office, schools and donation centers all closed. Gas ran short, as did supplies at grocery stores and city hospitals.

A poll of the people in the community who had the telecommuting system in place, however, found that 92 percent were at full functionality and no one could tell that they were not in the office.

Free Information and Advice
You can learn more and get a free quote at http://www.vocalocity.com.

Lawmakers are notorious for taking long vacations which go against the hardworking and dedicated work ethos of the American entrepreneurial class. While our elected representatives can afford long holidays in exotic locations, the people actually creating jobs are stuck managing employees and meeting the needs of clients going into the new year. It doesn’t matter if you run a search engine marketing agency or a small restaurant chain, not taking time off will cause you harm in the long run.

The common philosophy amongst small business owners is that if you are doing what you love, you will never have to work a day in your life. While that holds true to some extent, the fact is that starting a business and maintaining it will take a concerted amount of energy and effort out of anyone. If you are constantly working and worrying about only one thing, you will eventually suffer burnout and crash.

If you have set up your business at a strong point, consider taking time off in the summer or around late December. If you are feeling unsure about the strength of your company, this will give you a little bit of breathing room. Other, more established executives and owners will also be taking their vacations around these periods which will make you look sensible instead of weak.

According to JJ Ramberg, host of MSNBC’s Your Business, taking time off is important not just for yourself, but for the strength of your company. Letting your employees handle things on their own will expose how steady your internal infrastructure is and will let you know how you can improve on any weaknesses’ within the company. It will also give a boost of confidence to those you choose to leave in charge in your absence.

When you do eventually manage to sneak away for a vacation, make sure you spend it doing something unconventional. Too often people just jet down to the Gulf of Mexico and get drunk on the beach for a couple of weeks. Instead of doing this, try visiting your dream locale. A trip to Japan, Ireland, or Turkey could rejuvenate your business senses and leave you more prepared to take on challenges.

Instead of succumbing to constant stress and the demands of work every day, make sure you are actually getting a chance to enjoy your small business success. Just make sure to leave your electronic devices at home so you don’t get sucked into telecommuting to the office instead of making the most of your vacation.

There’s no need to choose between being a parent and running your dream business. Female entrepreneurs have been phenomenally successful in the recent past, with more than 8 million women-owned businesses in the United States.

This trend doesn’t seem to be a blip on the radar; in fact, women entrepreneurs are poised for continued growth over the next few years. Women entrepreneurs in the United States will create more than 5 million new jobs by 2018, which is more than half of the new jobs the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects to be created over that time, according to the Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute.

When women do make the leap to start their own businesses, research shows that they may be more successful than their male counterparts. The Institute also found that female small business owners may succeed because they are more engaged in strategic facets of their business, more committed to creating opportunities for others, and more customer-focused than their male counterparts.

Becoming a mompreneur is exciting, but your dream business won’t start itself. BizFilings, an online incorporation provider, offers the following business tips for mompreneurs, both aspiring and current.

Start a business that lets you follow your passion. If you plan a business around a hobby or something you enjoy, work can be fun, and you may not mind putting in the extra hours it will take to make your endeavor successful. BizFilings has helped over a million entrepreneurs start a business, and has incorporated businesses large and small, from fabric stores to Facebook. Starting your business gives you the freedom to choose your dream job or something that lets you spend more time with your family.

This past year saw continued growth from “digital moms,” or women bloggers, turning their blogs into businesses. If you have a blog, you can draw revenue from companies who agree to advertise or promote their products or services on your blog, turning something you love into a successful business model.

If you have a soft spot for our four-legged friends, consider capitalizing on the millions people spend each year on their pets. Start a pet care business for busy pet owners who don’t get a break in the day to take Fido for a walk. If you’d rather take your pooch to work, opening your own pet store (or pet bakery, a rising trend) can give you that flexibility.

Starting your own bakery or restaurant may seem daunting – but a food truck presents a unique opportunity to break into the food industry. Food trucks are popping up in cities nationwide, with Americans embracing the trend of mobile eating. Serving everything from crepes to cupcakes and sushi to sandwiches, this trend may be perfect for food-fueled entrepreneurs.

Create a business plan that works for you. This can be one of the most important first steps to starting a small business. Business plans aren’t tailor-made – everyone considers different things to be important. Use the Small Business Administration to help you write yours by visiting your local chapter or by using the resources available on http://www.sba.gov.

Consider incorporation to protect your family. When you’re starting up a business, you may have to rely on your family’s savings to get the business off the ground. Incorporating your company can protect your family’s assets and savings by providing a layer of liability between your business and your savings. If anything goes wrong, your family’s home, vehicles and even your child’s college fund could be at stake – but not if you’ve incorporated.

Incorporation can also grant you a better financial foundation when getting your business off the ground. Women are more prone than men to finance their business on credit cards – a risky gamble that often backfires with bad credit and steep interest charges. Getting a loan from a bank is a much savvier business decision, and incorporating your business can be a crucial factor in showing the bank that you take your business seriously.

“If you have a dream business, we’ll incorporate it – it’s that simple,” says Karen Kobelski, mother of two and a member of the leadership team at BizFilings. “And as a supporter of mompreneurs, we help our customers pick the business structure that’s right for them and their family.”

Becoming a mompreneur can have many benefits other than spending more time with your kids. Working from home can come with its own set of tax breaks, as long as your designated home office meets certain specifications. The government also provides specific programs to help women entrepreneurs, including grants and loans as well as specific contract work not available to other entrepreneurs. To find out more about government assistance for entrepreneurs, visit the SBA’s website, http://www.sba.gov.

One possible choice is a “safe haven” asset such as physical gold. Gold can act as a potential hedge against inflation and a falling dollar and is often an asset of choice during tumultuous economic and political times.

What to Ask
Before getting into the gold market, however, there are a number of key questions about your goals, your present portfolio and the economic environment you may want to consider first. For example:

Does your overall investment portfolio include assets that provide a potential hedge against inflation and a falling dollar? According to the U.S. Dollar Index, the dollar has lost 37 percent of its value since 2001 and that decrease may continue based on current monetary policy. If you are concerned about future inflation and the weakening dollar, it is worth considering gold.

Will having a physical asset-something you can hold in your hand-provide you with greater comfort about your portfolio? Gold has intrinsic value.

Are you in a position to invest in gold for the long term? Gold needs to be treated as a long-term investment: one with a three- to five-year—or, better yet, five- to 10-year—time horizon. You should be prepared to hold the investment for that long without liquidating it, although markets may dictate a longer or shorter holding period.

What’s the right amount of gold to own? Gold should be viewed as a diversification strategy, not a “bet the ranch” strategy. It’s prudent to allocate 5 to 20 percent of a total portfolio to gold, though others may recommend a different allocation.

Would you like to hold physical gold-such as coins or bullion-in your IRA? Physical gold can help diversify an IRA just as it can help diversify any other portfolio.

Is it the right time to buy gold? “A number of analysts continue to see a bullish trend for the price of gold, but we do not believe it’s wise to try to ‘time the market’ for gold,” said Scott Carter, CEO of Goldline International, a leading source of physical precious metals. “If you can treat gold as a long-term component of a larger investment portfolio, now could be a good time to get started,” he added.

Free Kit
To get a free gold investor kit and read important risk disclosures, visit http://www.goldline.com/learnmore. Goldline recommends that you review its account and storage agreement and risk disclosure booklet, “Coin Facts for Investors and Collectors to Consider” (both available in Goldline’s Investor Kit and website), before purchasing. All investments, including coins, currency and bullion, involve risk and past performance does not guarantee future results.

Being eco-friendly isn’t just for individuals and large corporations who need a boost to their PR. Small businesses, too, can get onboard with the movement. Even if being green doesn’t mesh with your worldview, it can still bring about cost savings for your business. Here are some steps that any small business owner can take:

Eliminate Trash  
Sure, it’s impossible to completely remove your business’s trash cans and eliminate waste of all kinds. But there are ways to cut down on trash – and to reduce costs in the process. If you provide something for your employers that creates waste and is not necessary, it is a good candidate for elimination. Paper products are a good place to start. Instead of buying tons of paper that will only be thrown out, go paperless whenever possible.

Use email rather than printing and handing out a document. Send out electronic checks for employers who use direct deposit. Another contender for elimination could come in the form of food or water products. Instead of providing wholesale water bottles that will only end up in the trash, encourage your employees to bring their own and use the tap.

Use Less Electricity
There are many ways to go about accomplishing this task. The cheapest is to simply insure that employees turn everything off before leaving for the day – computers and monitors as well as lights. This can translate into significant electricity savings. Other options require up-front costs but also promise savings in the long run: you can have your building examined for cracks and leaks, start using energy efficient light bulbs, or install timers and motion sensors to insure that lights don’t stay on and that the temperature isn’t set too high overnight.

Even if being green doesn’t mesh with your worldview, it can still bring about cost savings for your business.

Promote Telecommuting
If your business is in a metropolitan area, there’s a good chance that you and your employees spend thousands of dollars commuting each year. By allowing staff to occasionally work from home, you not only help the environment by reducing gas consumption, but you can also save some money on electricity and water at the same time. Allowing employees to telecommute can furthermore boost worker satisfaction and productivity by creating flexibility in their schedules and by periodically eliminating a stressful commute.

There are more ways to go green in the workplace, but this list should make for a good place to start. If you aren’t already taking steps to conserve and eliminate when possible, there’s no reason to not start doing so. After all, these steps are usually cheap or free, often provide long-term savings, and can increase your employee satisfaction. And, of course, they are good for the environment, too.

So, there’s no time like now to take a closer look at your small business. Are you maximizing efficiencies, or spending too much time on the small things? Are you doing the right things to grow your business? Are you putting off asking yourself the hard questions that may turn around sluggish sales?

There are more than 27 million small businesses in the country, employing about half of U.S. workers, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. In fact, between 60 and 80 percent of all new jobs created in our country can be attributed to small businesses. For small businesses to thrive in today’s economy, they have to find ways to boost efficiency with limited funding and resources.

Rags-to-riches entrepreneur Barbara Corcoran has built a thriving business from scratch and become a leading expert and author on strategies for business profitability and growth.

“Small business owners wear many hats – from CEO to office manager – and they can’t afford to get bogged down in the time-draining details,” says Corcoran. “Now is the ideal time for small business owners to streamline their operations and start thinking about how they can best move their business forward.”

Here is some of Corcoran’s best advice for anyone looking to take a small business to the next level:

Make a not-to-do list: It can actually be tremendously helpful to sit down and make a long list of all the things you do that amount to nothing. Then, carefully write the not-to-do list on a piece of paper and post it on your refrigerator or desk where you’re bound to see it. It will force you to fill in your time with more productive activities that might yield a better return.

Make a system for everything. A system can be developed for anything – you just have to take the time to set it up once, and it will save you enormous time and boring repetition. For example, small businesses need a simple order fulfillment system. Electronic postage solutions like those from DYMO Endicia integrate with your online e-commerce platform and provide one location to store all your customer information, keeping you organized and making shipment processing and mailing fast and simple.

Stay away from complainers: Whether you’re at home or at work, complainers rob you of your energy. They’re a lot like the Death Eaters robbing the life from Harry Potter and his good friends. Always distance yourself from the person who whines. Your outlook on life will improve and your energy will soar.

Get creative: The big guy always has the corner on money but the little guy usually has the corner on creativity. Take some time to sit down and analyze how your rivals are advertising their brand and plan something smarter. One way you can do this is through (free) social media.  If you take the time to creatively post and write with honesty and a touch of humor, you will soon build a large following of fans willing to try out your product and brag to their friends.

Mission statements are used to communicate the company’s vision to external entities such as customers and society. As a result, it is used by the external entities to form a public image about the company. Customers are concerned with benefits they will receive and solutions offered to solve their problems. Society is concerned with the effect of the company on the environment, ethical management, and corporate citizenship. Without the mission statement, it would be difficult for the public to form an opinion about the company.

An effective mission statement also describes the company’s position in a marketplace. In addition, it should specify the primary target market the company is pursuing. Clearly, having the mission statement helps define a marketing strategy. Companies that do not create the mission statement may end up with ineffective marketing campaigns and would waste funds allocated for marketing.

Many valuable mission statements include a reference to the core technology utilized by the business. A core technology was identified as the third highest priority to be included in the mission statement based on the survey of CEOs as published in the Corporate Governance (vol 2, no 3, pg. 17).  Without the stated mission statement, a company may have difficulties architecting an adequate technology platform to support its business offering.

Achieving customer satisfaction, addressing consumer needs, and ensuring customers receive the highest possible level of customer service is another objective.  The mission statement contains a message on the benefits to customers regarding the solution to their problems, values they will receive, and satisfaction they will get. Having a clearly defined mission statement positively affects customers’ perceptions and increases loyalty. Companies that do not develop a mission statement may have difficulties attracting customers and form positive perceptions about the company.

About the author:
Isaac J. Gabriel, Ph.D. is the President and CEO of a New York-based start-up EZ Resort Vacations, Inc. Dr. Gabriel specializes in electronic commerce, marketing, and information technology management.

Networking
Facebook and Twitter aren’t just for Fans, they are also a great way for you to find others in the business and connect with them. Look for press members or reviewers who would be interested in your type of business and then follow them. If you remain active online, they will eventually take notice of you and possibly give you a few write ups in the local paper or magazine to help get your name out there.

Establishing Your Authority
Another part of social media is blogging, and through a blog you can help establish yourself as an authority over your industry. People like to buy from those who know their business and do it well so having a highly informative and trustworthy blog will make people more inclined to shop with you.

Creating Hype
In addition to using your social networking accounts to network with press and industry related individuals, you should also be using them to keep your prospective customers interested and engaged. Keep them waiting and wanting. Post updates about your opening, the new products or services you are adding to your line, and what you are doing to bring it all together. By keeping everyone involved you will have them eager to support you, and dying to get in when you open your doors.

Businesses today won’t survive if they don’t start incorporating social media sites into their every day operations. Shoppers today no longer simply want to buy their goods from an unknown business; they want an experience and want to feel as though they are connecting with a community when they offer a business their patronage. Give them what they want and create a strong following by signing up and staying active on social media sites and on your blog.