Community and a commitment to societal change is not a novel concept to many companies operating in the cannabis space. In fact, many cannabis companies exist today because their founders wanted to create meaningful impacts in their communities. Yet, despite those good intentions and practices, the differences they're making are going largely unnoticed by the general public.
The City and County of Denver are working to change that. They're launching a new program called Cannabis Cares. The crux of its mission is to shed light on the incredible work cannabis businesses have been doing in the community of Denver.
Our latest guest on the Move the Stairs podcast is Shannon Donnelly, the Cannabis Process Navigator for the City and County of Denver. Since 2007, Donnelly has been working in Colorado's cannabis industry with career paths ranging from business owner to now local government. During this podcast, Shannon explains:
More about the program and areas the City and County of Denver are recognizing
Why a program like this can be critical in making connections with consumers and media
How your personal story can be the key to unlocking your brand's resilience and how you can work toward comfortably sharing that story
You can listen to Shannon's 30-minute conversation on the Move the Stairs™ podcast here. Or, check out our top three Move the Stairs™ takeaways below.
Move the Stairs Moment 1: What's Cannabis Cares? How are businesses being recognized?
Not every city is going to have a program like this, however, follow along! Are you checking any of these boxes that would earn you a badge if you operated in Denver? Are you telling your customers about the good your company is doing? Remember, if your cause is genuine, the odds of your company looking insincere about its charitable efforts are minimal.
Move the Stairs Moment 2: There's strength in numbers. Tell your story!
Like consumers in many other industries, cannabis customers are also purpose driven. Does your company's purpose support your community? What about a larger impact? These can be great nuggets to harvest and offer to local media. At the very least, they can resonate with your consumers.
Move the Stairs Moment 3: Sometimes the cost of resiliency is vulnerability
You've seen the words authenticity, vulnerability, and transparency written countless times in our move the Stairs Blog posts. Shannon shared a deeply personal story with us that she learned how to tell others. It's heavy but for us, it just rolled off the tongue. By telling that story, she learned how to be vulnerable and ultimately use vulnerability as a resource to build her and her business's resiliency. Now, she teaches students how to do the same.