Book Review: Building a Culture of Good

According to Giving USA, American individuals, bequests, foundations, and corporations gave an estimated $592.50 billion in 2024 to U.S. charities, placing it among the highest years ever for charitable giving.  Over the past couple of decades, this trend has continued, and charitable giving has steadily risen.  One significant source of this increase has been from business organizations.  In their book, authors and philanthropists Scott Moorehead and Ryan McCarty write about how businesses can and should implement their personal philosophy of giving into businesses of all shapes and sizes.  

Scott Moorehead and Ryan McCarty are the co-authors of Building a Culture of Good: Unleashing Results by Letting Your Employees Bring Their Soul to Work.  Scott Moorehead is the CEO of Round Room and each of its entities: TCC, Wireless Zone, Culture of Good, and Redux.  These combined entities eclipsed $2 Billion in revenue in 2017 making Round Room one of the 5 largest privately held companies in the State of Indiana.  He has been in this role since 2008.  Ryan McCarty created Culture of Good, Inc. to inspire other businesses to create truly altruistic programs that make the world a better place.  He is featured in Huffington Post, Inc.com, People, Forbes, and more.  With more than 30 years of leadership experience in the non-profit and for-profit industry, Ryan has a meaningful passion for inspiring employees and customers, igniting positive change in the world, and impacting companies’ bottom lines.  You can learn more about Scott and Ryan at their website Culture of Good. 

Building a Culture of Good gives leaders the tools to both utilize charitable works and integrate them into normalized parts of business.  Without spoiling too much, I found two key takeaways… 

Firstly, forms of charity or nonprofit work in a for-profit-business can be beneficial.  When people think of charity, they often associate it with big checks and fundraising dinners.  However, charity does not need to be something that is one-and-done; it does not need to be an annual dinner or selling coupons.  It can be integrated into the operations of your very business, and moreover, there are some associated intrinsic benefits.  One benefit is that consumers are more likely to do business with a business if it supports a charity.  About eighty percent of Americans are likely to switch brands, equal in quality and price, to the one that supports a charity (learn more here).  There are also benefits such as boosts in employee morale, tax deductions, alternative marketing, and brand building (learn more here).

Second, find a cause that your employees and consumers support.  Finding initiatives that employees can have hands-on experience with will create a significantly strong rapport and keep employees engaged.  There is nothing wrong with supporting causes that are a bit more abstract, but if there is little way to engage and see the tangible impact, it will be difficult for employees and consumers to draw any correlation between the business and the charity.  Ryan Scott told story after story of businesses that truly integrated a “culture of good” and the amazing benefits that followed.  It is not easy, but with persistence, everyone can find the right fit and level of involvement.  Businesses and consumers alike can benefit from normalized charitable giving and promote the healthy growth of society in the process.  

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Written by Noah Polipnick