In this episode of Laying the Foundation, we sit down with Brian Crichton, the CEO of CMBA Architects, to discuss the company's commitment to giving back to the community. Brian shares insights into CMBA's charitable giving initiatives, the Volunteer Time Off (VTO) program, and the company's focus on employee involvement in community service. He also discusses the importance of corporate social responsibility and the benefits it brings to both the company and the community.

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Episode Transcript

(Skyler): Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of the Laying the Foundation podcast. My name is Skyler. And joining me in our final episode of the Building Culture with Brian series, of course, it wouldn't be Building Culture with Brian if I didn't have Brian Crichton, CEO of CMBA Architects, here with me. Brian, welcome to the show.

(Brian): Hey, thanks. Glad to be here.

(Skyler): Glad to have you back again.

(Brian): Yeah, so, absolutely.

(Skyler): This is the big finale episode, you could say, of our mini-series that we've been doing throughout this year. And today we're going to be talking about giving back. How is CMBA as a company giving back? And there are a lot of ways that that kind of manifests itself. Right? So, if you, Brian, could give me some of those ways that we are as a company giving back? Just a broad overview.

(Brian): Well, in basic terms, you could say through our hands and feet, you could say through our checks that we provide. But I think it's also through the gifts that we've been given as individuals as well. So our knowledge that we can share with others. So there are multiple ways in which we try to give back. We know that our place within the communities that we serve is very precious. Yes. Right. As architects, as interior designers, as team members of CMBA, we are viewed as local experts in what we do or regional experts at what we do. And we hold that very dear to us because we know that's important, that helps us continue to do what we do, but also to serve others. Because one of our core values is service, and the other is people, is one of the four, service and people. So, how do we serve others? I think we are called as individuals to do that every day. And, yeah, we can do that in multiple different fashions, but we need to think about service first.

(Skyler): I like what you put in there for the community. And we're, you know, kind of relied on. But then we also, of course, rely on our community. It's very true, with great power comes great responsibility.

(Brian): Very true, very true.

(Skyler): That's awesome. So we have, again, like you said, a number of ways that we are as a company giving. We're giving with our hands and feet. What are we looking at for those? That side of things?

(Brian): Sure. So, we do have a volunteer work program. Volunteer hours.

(Skyler): Volunteer time off.

(Brian): Time off. Yes.

(Skyler): That's VTO.

(Brian): VTO - Volunteer Time Off program.

(Skyler): Right.

(Brian): So we allow our employees up to 16 hours a year for them to volunteer at local organizations. And that's on us, on CMBA. You just have to basically tell us what program you want to volunteer for. Write down the hours that you have. And it's an approved expense for CMBA. We also provide a cool T-shirt.

(Skyler): Yeah, I was going to say we get a shirt out.

(Brian): Of the video, of course. So we want people to give back. And an example of that is Amy Parks, who serves at the Center for Siouxland, and she does so through the VITA program, which basically it's preparing tax returns for those who can't afford to have someone else do that. So they do free tax returns for people. And I think that center does like 2,700 a year. It's a huge number of tax returns. But she's been doing that for 15, 20 years. And I know she also serves or has served recently, like Meals on Wheels. And those are examples of different programs that we would absolutely love for employees to get involved with. I think another way is doing some pro bono type work for organizations. And we've done that before. We have said, hey, we want to be a part of that. We'd love to give, you know, maybe it's not 100% of our fees, but maybe it's 50% of our fees or, you know, 75% of our fees. Something that we can say, hey, we had a direct impact on the success of that project or that endeavor that this organization has. So sponsorships, of course, are big on that. People need money to make these things run. So yes, we do give that way, but volunteer work, giving back on pro bono type work as well, we think that's very important. Absolutely. Yeah.

(Skyler): And it is really impressive to get to see what everybody's involved in.

(Brian): Yeah.

(Skyler): Like you said, all the way from Amy helping people fill out their tax forms, all the way to, you know, people helping in soup kitchens, to people working with kids with educational-type things.

(Brian): Amy, I just saw a photo of the Iowa Architectural Foundation. I don't know if you saw the photos from those guys, but I think there were three or four from our Des Moines office who went to a local school and read to, I don't know, what age of students. Let me get you the photos. But serving through organizations like the Iowa Architectural Foundation, which impacts students, but helps them to learn, maybe about architecture, but maybe just in general, just going to read to kids.

(Skyler): Absolutely. You've done that too. I remember there are pictures of you going.

(Brian): Yeah, I try, I try to give back.

(Skyler): So absolutely, it's super exciting to see, and it's really, I have a lot of fun with it from the marketing side because obviously we want to share what people are involved in. And that way we're also sharing what's out there to get involved in, to hopefully help other people within our community and within our audience, to also want to maybe get involved. And it's really cool seeing the really creative directions that people will go in to help people.

(Brian): Right.

(Skyler): Because there's a very diverse amount of things that we can help with as people. And so, yeah, it's really cool getting to see some of the stuff that people are involved in. So obviously, giving back is an important social responsibility, kind of going along with what you said earlier. I mean, it's a two-way street, right? We give back to organizations, and we usually see some return from that as well. What kind of ways are we kind of looking at?

(Brian): It's an opportunity for us to have some brand awareness out there. Yes. But it's also a way in which we can say to our communities, we think this is important. Right. This endeavor is important because of whatever that may be, you know, making children's lives better through reading, potentially, or a soup kitchen, you know, feeding those who are less fortunate than us, or whatever it may be. Those programs are very important, and our company feels that we need to give back to them absolutely.

(Skyler): And I would also argue it's, you know, it's a positive thing for our company culture as a whole. And the growth of our company culture is encouraging people to do these things. Right. I mean, for some people, you know, it's really easy to kind of have that servant mentality of I want to go out there and I want to do something to help people. Right. For other people who might not have been involved in as much of that kind of stuff, you know, it can be a little bit.

(Brian): A little daunting.

(Skyler): Yeah, a little daunting. Maybe. Maybe it's not something you think of that you might want to do, but we've had a lot of really great programs. And obviously, you know, the VTO program is awesome. It's a good way to encourage people, hey, you're still getting paid, but you get to go out there and you get to help people who are less fortunate or help people to grow.

(Brian): And the VTO program is probably more of a seed program for us, so that, hey, we're willing to support you to be out there to maybe have you catch that bug of serving others so that in the future, yeah, maybe it's. You're still using the VTO, but on the weekends, I'm going to work for Habitat for Humanity, whatever it may be. Right. Or the food bank and packed bags or whatever. So I think it's a seed program for us to say, this is important to us as a culture, as a company. Our leaders are participating in that. Right. And showing others that this is important. So maybe it's a way for them to go, hey, you know, I really like that. I want to do that more.

(Skyler): I've never tried this before.

(Brian): Yeah.

(Skyler): And I fell in love with it.

(Brian): Right, exactly.

(Skyler): That's awesome. That's awesome. All right, so what am I missing here, Brian? What else is there that we haven't covered about community engagement and giving back?

(Brian): I think, if I could talk directly to the team members, potentially or even future team members. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid to use the skills that you have inside of you. Not everybody can solve problems like we do. We bring a unique skill set to organizations. Can we read financial statements? Maybe not our strongest suit. Right. But can we help them think about, hey, this building needs some help? Not maybe you don't need a new building, but hey, did you notice that there's a brick issue on the outside of this? Did you notice that there's a big crack right here? Did you notice? You know, for us to have. We have different eyes, I think, and we look at things differently than most people do. Not in a negative way. I'm not saying that, but we just look at buildings differently. We look at physical environments differently. Let's say we are helping one of the local organizations and they have these certain operations set up in a certain way, let's say a food bank. And I'm not trying to improve the food bank, by the way. They're good friends. Yeah. But if as a young architect and I'm volunteering, and I could see there might be some bottlenecks potentially in that, don't be afraid to say, Hey, have you thought about moving this here or moving that there? Because it might solve or speed things up or make it more efficient. I think that, to me as a team member, don't be afraid to serve, to try things, but then to use those skills that are given to you because you do think about things differently.

(Skyler): Yeah.

(Brian): Yeah.

(Skyler): That's cool. That's cool. I mean, hey, you know, it's all of our superpowers, right?

(Brian): Right.

(Skyler): Use your superpower to help people. Don't just bottle it up and use it for yourself.

(Brian): We should all have capes on. Something like that. Masks.

(Skyler): Awesome. Well, Brian, again, thank you. I know this is a shorter episode to kind of finish things off, but thank you so much for sharing about giving back, what we're doing to give back. And I love that you left that encouragement at the end there, too, to tell people to get out there. Give back. Use your skills to help in ways that only you can. Awesome.

(Brian): Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it.

(Skyler): Absolutely. Thanks for putting this entire series together for us.

(Brian): Yeah, that was fun.

(Skyler): Awesome. See you guys next time.

(Skyler): If you'd like to find out more about the Laying the Foundation podcast, you can head over to any podcast streaming platform such as Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, and others. You can also find out more about CMBA Architects through social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Additionally, you can head over to the CMBA website at cmbaarchitects.com. If you're an architecture or design professional or an intern looking for an internship within those fields, please be sure to check out our website and click on the Careers tab to find out more about what opportunities we offer. This has been another episode of the Laying the Foundation podcast. We'll see you next time.