Will SMEs’ altruism continue post-Covid?

It’s often said that SMEs are the heart­beat of their local com­mu­ni­ties. Despite the prob­lems that have blight­ed much of the busi­ness world over the past 16 months, many small­er firms in the UK have proved this by going the extra mile to sup­port key work­ers and help the most vul­ner­a­ble mem­bers of soci­ety dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

The sec­tor broke records in giv­ing back to com­mu­ni­ties in 2020, accord­ing to a report com­piled in March 2021 by Oxford Eco­nom­ics and Intu­it Quick­Books. In total, the nation’s SMEs donat­ed more than £6bn in cash and gifts in kind to a range of good caus­es. A fur­ther £11.4bn-worth of vol­un­teer­ing time was dis­trib­uted among local schools and char­i­ties such as those deliv­er­ing donat­ed food to elder­ly and dis­abled peo­ple iso­lat­ing in their homes. 

With 43% of con­sumers say­ing that they are more like­ly to shop local­ly than was the case before March 2020, the report’s authors believe that the image of small busi­ness­es and their val­ue to com­mu­ni­ties has improved sharply. 

Telling­ly, it was phil­an­thropy, rather than the desire to look good, that drove many SMEs to help out when the cri­sis was at its height. The num­ber one moti­va­tion they cit­ed to the researchers was the desire to “give back to soci­ety”, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it came to help­ing vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple liv­ing alone dur­ing the lock­downs. Next came the ambi­tion to sup­port the “caus­es we feel pas­sion­ate about”, fol­lowed by help­ing to “devel­op the local com­mu­ni­ty”. Many busi­ness own­ers also report­ed that they had respond­ed to their employ­ees, who’d urged them to take action.

Bottling the feelgood factor

While many inde­pen­dent firms have pro­vid­ed free food, drink and accom­mo­da­tion to NHS staff and oth­er key work­ers, oth­ers have adapt­ed their pro­duc­tion lines to pro­vide vital sup­plies. Spurred on by the nation­wide short­age of hand sani­tis­ers in the ear­ly days of the pan­dem­ic, Ian McCul­loch, co-founder and direc­tor of Silent Pool Gin, resolved to put the by-prod­ucts of gin dis­till­ing – which would nor­mal­ly end up in an anaer­o­bic digester – to good use.

Over the past 16 months, he and his team have dis­trib­uted more than 80,000 free bot­tles of 88%-proof sani­tis­er to front-line NHS work­ers, police offi­cers, home­less char­i­ties, GP surg­eries and vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple local to the busi­ness, which is based in the rur­al Sur­rey vil­lage of Albury, who have been unable to vis­it a super­mar­ket or shop online.

“Being able to make a prac­ti­cal con­tri­bu­tion to the unfold­ing health cri­sis lift­ed the spir­its of the entire 30-strong work­force and made us feel pur­pose­ful, both as a team and a busi­ness,” McCul­loch says. “Know­ing that we were doing some­thing pos­i­tive gave us a tremen­dous lift when the Covid news was real­ly bad. It helped to rein­force the fact that, far from being a face­less team of dis­tillers based in a fac­to­ry some­where, we live, work and shop in this com­mu­ni­ty.”

Although the urge to sup­port local com­mu­ni­ties is clear­ly a prime moti­va­tion for SMEs, ensur­ing that busi­ness­es remain viable for the long term is, under­stand­ably, an impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tion too. Hav­ing hit on a suc­cess­ful brand exten­sion almost by chance, Silent Pool Gin will con­tin­ue pro­duc­ing sani­tis­er for as long as there is a mar­ket, but it will be run­ning its side­line on a com­mer­cial basis from now on.

Printing a way out of the crisis

In the ear­ly days of the pan­dem­ic, var­i­ous items of per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment, like hand sani­tis­ers, were in des­per­ate­ly short sup­ply. Hav­ing pur­chased a 3D print­er in 2019 to pro­duce elec­tron­ic com­po­nents, Advanced Fibre­op­tic Engi­neer­ing was well placed to help the NHS.

“When our print­er sup­pli­er cre­at­ed a glob­al web­site at the start of last year to help deliv­er 3D print­ed visors to health pro­fes­sion­als around the world, we were real­ly keen to get involved,” says Mark John­son, com­mer­cial direc­tor at the firm, which is based near RAF Brize Nor­ton in Oxford­shire.

He recalls that every mem­ber of the company’s 50-strong work­force rose to the chal­lenge of pro­duc­ing visor frames. “All of us like to feel that our work has mean­ing. There was clear­ly a strong sense of pride attached to help­ing the health ser­vice – par­tic­u­lar­ly so for our engi­neers, whose exper­tise proved invalu­able.”

John­son adds that the fact that “all of us helped out in a cri­sis” has uni­fied the team and is like­ly to have made the com­pa­ny a more attrac­tive employ­er, espe­cial­ly among younger job­seek­ers. 

If the find­ings of the con­sumer sur­vey by Oxford Eco­nom­ics and Intu­it are any­thing to go by, the mil­lions of peo­ple who have come to rely on local busi­ness­es dur­ing the pan­dem­ic will car­ry on patro­n­is­ing them when­ev­er pos­si­ble. But will the altru­ism that so many SMEs have shown in the cri­sis also con­tin­ue?

Accord­ing to Alan Thomas, UK CEO at online insur­ance bro­ker Sim­ply Busi­ness, the desire among small­er firms to give back to com­mu­ni­ties is here to stay – but it’s a two-way street.  

“Covid is set to cost the country’s SMEs £126.6bn in total. While this is a huge blow to the econ­o­my, it will have an even greater impact on the peo­ple behind these firms: the own­ers, who have fam­i­lies, liveli­hoods and dreams to pro­tect,” he says. “It’s time for all of us to give back to the sec­tor that did so much to sup­port us last year.”