A few years ago I had the pleasure of hearing a speech from Cheryl Hornung.

Cheryl is the founder of a non-profit organization called Caitlin’s Smiles and she spoke about her organization’s mission of collecting arts and crafts supplies, bundling them up into individual care packages and distributing those care packages to children’s hospitals throughout the region.

Cheryl started the organization a few years after her daughter, Caitlin, lost her battle with brain cancer at the age of seven. Between chemotherapy sessions and throughout her many, many days and nights in the hospital, it was arts and crafts that brought a smile to Caitlin’s face and helped keep her mind off of things no seven year old should have to think about.

Cheryl has pretty much been running Caitlin’s Smiles herself with the help of friends, family members and local girl scout troops. Every month or so they meet in a church to assemble the “Bags o’ Smiles” and every month the word spreads farther about Cheryl’s work as more hospitals request bags of supplies for their kids. Cheryl always finds a way to honor their requests, but there’s not always enough supplies and volunteers to meet the demand.

My description of Caitlin’s story and the organization that lives on in her name might not make you misty eyed like it did to me the first time I heard it, but I have a feeling you’ll understand when I say that I knew from the moment Cheryl left the stage that if Caitlin’s Smiles didn’t already have some promotional support, I wanted Pavone to provide it for her.

Since then, the thinkbank has adopted Caitlin’s Smiles as the “agency pro bono client.” Some of us donate our time at various functions. Others donate their expertise behind the scenes to promote the organization. Like most advertising and public relations agencies, we realize our ability to promote businesses and causes that otherwise might not be able to afford professional services.  It’s a civic responsibility we take great pride in.

Which brings me – finally – to the point of this post. It’s important, no matter how small or large your company is, to find an organization (or two or three) and devote some time to it. Give your employees a common cause to rally around. Take a half day off on Friday every other month if you have to. Because I can tell you from experience that the “lost working hours” are more than made up in between with the pride your employees will feel after doing something worthwhile.