Charitable Designs

Increasingly in our wired world, businesses large and small are learning the absolute necessity of a strong web-presence. But if you've ever tried to commission a website design, license a domain or contract with a host, you probably realize that the process can be a fair bit trickier than the sum of its parts. That's one of the reasons WebsitesGiveB@ck caught my eye. The Front Royal, Virginia-based family business offers creative but affordable web design services, specializing in small businesses and the service business community. For one flat rate, they bundle together the entire project: designing a five-page site, registering your domain, offering a year of web hosting, submitting your site to search engines, even throwing in a few hours of technical assistance.

But as their name implies, WebsitesGiveB@ck has a secondary mission. As envisioned by co-founders Elena Patrice and Linda Saker, the company donates about 20% of the proceeds of each web design project to a charity of the client's choosing. As Elena Patrice told me, "We feel we have a huge opportunity to help in two significant ways. First, small businesses are struggling, and we present them with an amazing service that covers virtually every base in their website design for one flat rate. We go many 'extra miles' because we want to do all we can to sincerely and honestly serve small business owners. Second, we help charitable organizations, who are experiencing their greatest decline in donor assistance ever. We summarize our efforts as the 3 C's: Company-Customer-Cause. It all works together, and that's our tag line: 'Good business and goodwill coming together.'"

According to a listing on their site, WebsitesGiveB@ck and their customers have donated to The American Red Cross, Toys For Tots, The Nature Conservancy and Special Olympics, among many others. For 2011, they have sent the ambitious goal of raising $60,000 in charitable donations.

Like many small businesses profiled on this blog, WebsitesGiveB@ck sees the relationship between business, the community and philanthropic groups as an evolving, interdependent one. As Patrice describes it, "As an entrepreneur in this time in history, 'giving back' and thinking of more than the bottom line is almost hardwired into you. For us, it was the cornerstone. Something that Sir Richard Branson stated has always stuck with me: 'With success and owning a business comes an awesome responsibility to others.' He is correct and we all need to keep this in mind."