Business Engagement Plan

Violent crime is a threat to Kansas City’s presence on the world stage, and it’s costing us billions of dollars each year. Because our businesses fuel our city’s success, it’s necessary for them to rally together to help create a safer and brighter future for us all.

Why Should Businesses Help?

Every other day, Kansas City businesses lose a customer or team member to preventable homicides.

With the impact of these immeasurable losses, how can our businesses grow or thrive? When businesses face the domino effect of violence on their teams, their customers, and their communities, it makes it impossible to focus on business initiatives, and we see that impact into finances as well as talent retention and acquisition.

Kansas City’s homicides in 2023 alone cost us $2.3 billion.*

It’s a startling number, and this economic drain hurts the functional needs of our publicly funded programs. It makes people and businesses less likely to come to or stay in our region. Investing in and improving safety in the Kansas City region will allow us to grow our economy and create a better climate for business.

Socially responsible businesses have more engaged and productive employees.**

By advancing a mission aligned with your commitment to your community and staff, employees feel engaged within their communities and with their organization. It’s a way to demonstrate that you care. Additionally, businesses can benefit from making meaningful partnerships with high-impact nonprofits.

Your business can lead the way

How Can Businesses Help?

We need our business community to uphold and promote our community and shared values.

In the same way that our region’s businesses of all sizes have stepped up in times of natural disasters and a global pandemic, together we can address the endemic levels of violent crime impacting our region.  

Join the movement to build a thriving, safer Kansas City – one with increasing economic mobility – and a committed workforce to the common good. The greatest power in Kansas City is when we collaboratively rally our workforce and engage our civic responsibility.

Ways Businesses Can Take Action

These are the best ways that Kansas City businesses can take action today to help reduce violent crime: 

Provide job shadowing, mentoring/coaching, and/or sponsoring paid internships for young people from communities most impacted by violence through programs like the Kauffman Foundation’s Pro X, Youth Ambassadors, and Great Jobs KC. 
Attend open-to-the-public KC 360 meetings at 9am every Thursday at Rockhurst University’s Magis Activity Center – 5311 Tracy Ave KCMO 64110. Showcase your business’s leadership in violence prevention with CEO and Senior Management alongside KC Common Good and countless community partners. 
Volunteer by mobilizing fellow employees, customers, and clients around meaningful community opportunities. Establish a regional community involvement ambassador team to rally employees around a cause, which generates a more inclusive and shared purpose.  
Create jobs by hiring and developing talent pool from Kansas City’s core neighborhoods most impacted by violence.  When possible, consider relocating a segment of your business to underserved communities.  
Invest in the work of KC Common Good and KC 360 to deploy resources more rapidly for violence reduction efforts.

*Based on research from the RAND Corporation: 

** According to research conducted for “Organizational Psychology.”

GET INVOLVED

Now sure how to get started? KC Common Good is ready to help your organization make a meaningful impact in reducing violence in our city. It all begins with a simple decision to act. Take the first step and contact us today.