Stanley Hurwitz, Creative Communications

The right PR and marketing can boost your brand and bottom line. And when marketing your business also supports a worthy cause, you gain immeasurable goodwill and branding. A few examples of organizations that are almost synonymous with the causes they support include John Hancock / the Boston Marathon, and the Red Sox /Dana-Farber - Jimmy Fund.

Your business’s support of a charity has many benefits to the organization, the community and your company: heightened awareness about the cause or organization, the good feeling you and your team get from giving back to the community, a positive image of your company and products, and tax deductions.

What if your donation could save lives in the community where you live or work? The debate over the need for seat belts in school buses raised my interest. Every day, 450,000 school buses carry 25 million children to school. The children are very safe, but tragedy can strike in a flash. The National Transportation Safety Board found that “properly-worn seat belts make the bus safer, especially in severe side impact crashes and rollovers.” The National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration (NHTSA) ranks buses as the safest form of transportation for kids. On average, about 10 school-age children are killed each year while riding school buses. About 12,000 are injured. Only six states require seat belts in school buses, but the NHTSA is reviewing the issue.

Everyone agrees about seat belts provide added peace of mind, but most school districts don’t have the $7,000 per bus to install seat belts or even $3,000 for lap belts. Here’s a solution: What if companies sponsored seat belt installation within school districts where they do business?

They could outfit as many buses as their budget allows (tax deductible!), and set an example for other businesses. An added incentive for seat belt sponsors could be a low-key “thank you” sign on the bus exterior. The sponsor would receive valuable publicity upon installation, and continued positive reinforcement for years after as the bus makes its daily rounds across town. For some businesses, the right PR / marketing person can be a lifesaver.

Stanley Hurwitz, principal of Stanley Hurwitz / Creative Communications, Stoughton, Mass.