How's your community outreach? Is it working for you? Have you connected with your local history or women's history?

Connecting your business or organization with either (or both) is a terrific way to boost the results from reaching out to your community. The successful business people I know all want to make a difference AND grow their company.

For example, by getting involved with history you can have a positive effect on young people and we know history education is sorely "lacking" nationwide. Perhaps you've heard author David McCullough comment on the subject. He's right on!

Women's history is even more lacking and for girls, especially, hearing the stories of successful, courageous women can have a wonderfully positive impact on their self esteem (although boys need to hear the stories too!).

Local history always needs a boost in terms of preservation (land, buildings, archives) and interpretation (talks, tours). Where can you plug in? Your historical society? Library? Museum? Schools? Theater company? Tour guide company? Good work is being done somewhere in your community, and I'm sure a phone call to your library's reference desk would tell you where.

And how wonderful it would be for your business's or organization's reputation to be associated with this kind of good work. It can only come back to you in positive ways!

Last year, I attended the annual meeting of a community bank, and the bank president, using pie charts, showed how much of their business had shifted from one geographic area to another - which was his goal. When he explained how the bank had accomplished this goal, almost every example he cited had to do with supporting local history events, projects, and organizations in a public and hands-on way (going far beyond just writing a check).

I'm sure it goes without saying that bank presidents know a thing or two about money! This man would not have spent staff time and money on activities that didn't benefit the bank's bottom line.

So I urge you to incorporate history in your community outreach -- publicly and proudly.

We are losing land and historic buildings. We are losing our story. Too many young people have absolutely no clue about history and for the rest of us there's always more to learn! There are always more stories to be uncovered and told.

And this is not just about entertainment. It's about thinking, learning, processing, growing, and being inspired. Those are all desirable qualities for individuals, businesses, and organizations!