Author: Sammantha Kramer
At Stone Coast, our responsibilities as a firm have always extended beyond serving our clients well. For us and for the quality individuals who make up our team, the communities where our employees live and work matter – and supporting them is a core part of our mission. Over twenty years, we've built a tradition of service through partnerships with local nonprofits, regular volunteer days, and sustained charitable contributions. Along the way we’ve found that this commitment has shaped us in unexpected ways, deepening our relationships with each other and our understanding of what service really means.
To make the most impact, we identify and support services for the most vulnerable populations in our Portland community, and we listen to our employees about the nonprofits they care about in communities outside of the city and beyond. We coordinate service days at food banks, partner with organizations addressing critical local needs, and support national organizations that have positively impacted the lives of members of our professional community. Over time, we've developed sustained relationships that allow us to show up consistently and become reliable sources of contribution. Through these efforts, we've seen tangible impact: meals distributed, programs funded, communities strengthened.
Something shifts when colleagues spend a day working together outside the office. In addition to having a platform to collaborate with community organizations, people from different departments and levels of experience work side by side in ways that create a different connection than what day-to-day work can provide.
These shared experiences create bonds across our organization that otherwise might not have had the opportunity to form. Our employees have told us repeatedly how much it means to work for a company that cares about community engagement; many have said that was a factor in joining the firm and a reason they've stayed. Beyond retention, we've seen personal growth in our team members as a result of this program. Volunteering offers perspective and fulfillment that enriches how people show up for each other and for their clients both personally and professionally.
Creating a culture of service that lasts takes intention and planning. We've learned that successful engagement depends on both structure and flexibility. By maintaining core partnerships and creating regular volunteer events, we provide a steady stream of easily accessed opportunities to participate. We also encourage employees to champion causes they're passionate about, and we make it a priority to say yes to requests for support by providing time, resources, and encouragement.
Service is embedded in how we operate as a firm – it’s reflected in our communications, supported by leadership, and celebrated alongside business achievements. We offer paid volunteer time and match charitable donations because we want to remove barriers to participation to make community engagement a part of who we are throughout the year as opposed to an annual obligation to be met at year-end.
Community engagement also gives back to us as an organization – it has strengthened our workplace culture over the years and created a shared sense of purpose that extends beyond serving our clients well. We've built a reputation in our communities as an organization that genuinely cares, and our colleagues are able to take pride in that as individuals as well as contribute to its ongoing construction with their own actions. Employee satisfaction reflects this reality, and when we recruit, candidates consistently mention our community involvement as a differentiator.
By participating, our people also develop new capabilities, discover strengths they didn't know they had, and build relationships that enrich their professional interactions with a shared personal experience. And we’ve noticed something else: our commitment to serving our communities has deepened our commitment to serving our clients. The same values that drive us to show up for our nonprofit partners – reliability, partnership, genuine care – come to characterize how we work with the clients we serve. Community engagement makes us better at what we do.
We’re profoundly grateful to both the organizations that have welcomed us and helped us make community engagement at Stone Coast so meaningful as well as the team members who continue to make service a priority.
Our community engagement reflects who we've chosen to be as an organization. When we think about our legacy, service isn't separate from our business - it's central to our identity and our understanding of the value of time.