With nearly 30 years of experience in professional development training, Roy Charette is a leader in the field of teambuilding. He has conducted thousands of programs and workshops worldwide, specializing in such areas as team dynamics, member roles, leadership styles, and communication to increase team efficiency.
In his current role as managing partner of Best Corporate Events (Best), Charette leads a team of trainers and facilitators in tailoring professional development and teambuilding programs to clients’ needs and ensuring proper event execution. The company’s teambuilding programs include charitable events for businesses and groups interested in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Last year, Best produced more than 200 charitable teambuilding programs, involving more than 20,000 participants.
Here, Charette explains how Best works with planners to increase CSR programs and charitable components into meetings and events.
What are Best’s most common types of charitable and CSR events?
We offer a variety of CSR programs benefiting a wide range of nonprofit organizations serving communities in need—from overseas soldiers and veterans, schools and youth programs to unhoused people and underprivileged children, individuals with cognitive and mobility impairments, music programs, and more. Our most popular programs in this category include Bike Build Donation®, Build-a-Wheelchair®, Mini-Golf Build and Food Donation, and Build-a-Guitar®. Most commonly, we lead groups of 100-500 participants.
Why might an event planner or destination marketing organization choose Best rather than coordinate a charitable or CSR program on their own?
As specialists in this area, we do this day in and day out. We have the resources to deliver large-scale charitable events anywhere in the country with as little as two weeks’ notice; we have a fully stocked warehouse full of in-kind donation materials for our lineup of more than 20 unique CSR teambuilding programs; and, perhaps most importantly, we have a vast network of nonprofit and charitable partners around the country. By identifying the charitable groups our clients want to help and tuning in to the current needs of charitable organizations, we can tailor programs and donation items for the most impact possible.
How can incorporating charitable work into the event agenda benefit attendees?
Adding a charitable component to the event agenda enables attendees to form meaningful connections to the community, while the collaborative teamwork activities associated with the program provide lessons on communications skills, time management, problem solving, relationship building and more. Whenever possible, we recommend scheduling the activity at the beginning of the event agenda to fully take advantage of the inherent collaborative and network-building elements from these programs. This also helps ensure a higher level of engagement before participants become “burned out” from a long day of meetings. It also kicks things off on a high note, energizing the group for the rest of their agenda.
What impact does charitable work have on the host destination, community partners, and attendees?
With individual charitable contributions down, nonprofit organizations are dependent on corporate donations. While we work with many well-known nonprofit entities, we also consider smaller local organizations to maximize the impact on the event’s host community destination.
The personal and professional feelings of caring and goodwill from charitable teambuilding events are powerful, emotional, and long-lasting. Every charity event is meaningful and memorable for attendees as they learn about the nonprofit organization and hear firsthand accounts from a charity representative of actual recipients—who may be getting wheelchairs, which provide them more mobility, or food donations, or much-needed health and wellness supplies for the homeless, or any of the hundreds of organizations we have helped to receive much-needed donations over the past 15 years.
For attendees, the impact of these experiences is often emotionally moving. Some members of the group may even have a personal connection to the specific cause, which may amplify the emotional moment for the entire group.
What wins or learning opportunities have you drawn upon to improve Best’s charitable teambuilding programs?
The lives of every person in the entire Best organization have been touched and enriched through our association with these amazing charity organizations. In fact, every employee in our company has taken part in researching and developing new charity programs and events, by tapping into stories from their own lives. An employee from our sales department helped create and produce an event for children and adults with Autism. One of our program managers and an employee from our production department helped create our literacy program by reaching out to various organizations to determine the types of reading materials and related items (bookcases, etc.) most needed in low-income major metro areas.
The most important learning opportunity we have as an organization is to listen to our employees, clients, meeting planners, and charities to assess how we are doing and what we should be doing in the future.
