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Once upon a time as travelers approached a town, they first would see the spires of a cathedral and the towers of a castle. From these two institutions, church and state, degrees of health and prosperity were woven into the fabric of communities. As travelers approach modern towns, they first see the gleaming towers of commerce, which sew quilts of health and prosperity in their communities.

What goes on in these organizations where community members spend the best hours of the best days of the best years of their lives? Everything goes on within these towers. Between the four walls of businesses and other institutions, we experience love, hate, joy, tears, personal growth and occasionally destruction. In other words, life and spirit are products of our gleaming modern towers of commerce, not just profits, loss, missions and goals.

Unfortunately, many of us ask ourselves the wrong question — how do I find balance between life and work? In framing that question, we get poor and unproductive answers. The right question is how do we find balance within life and work. Life and work are not separate aspects of our daily existence; rather, they are inextricably linked as two parts of a whole life.

The balance within life and work also applies to organizations. Because the health and prosperity of modern communities are so dependent upon business and non-business organizations, profits cannot and should not be the only focus of modern organizations. Large corporations have philanthropy departments that donate to worthwhile community projects that are not necessarily linked to corporate mission or profit. Since corporations do not exist independently of the communities within which they operate, social responsibility is as important as corporate responsibility to investors and employees.

Three wonderful and local examples of social responsibility outside normal corporate mission came to my attention this week and inspired this column. An excited Safeway employee asked me if I was aware of the company’s corporate and employee commitment to breast cancer detection research. The employees are volunteering time on Wednesday to support a fundraising dinner and auction at the Westmark Hotel. The employees didn’t have to gather auction items voluntarily on their own time or man the event, but they did. Way to go. Everybody wins.

Another example of corporate social responsibility is the Doyon Management Training Program, which provides Doyon shareholders (not employees) with extensive management and leadership training to better their communities. As you know, Doyon Ltd. is a large for-profit corporation with more than 3,000 employees worldwide. Isn’t it exciting they make training available for people who are not employees, simply because it is the right thing to do? This is a great example of another double-win.

Social responsibility is not natural for human beings. Think about how judges sentence criminal offenders to community service in lieu of jail time. I wonder how many parents are training their offspring to be philanthropic by taking them each week for a few hours of volunteer community service? Proverbs 22:6 states, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” I think more parents take their children to sports events than to serve at the food bank. I’m afraid that included me when my kids were small.

It therefore falls to schools to teach “service learning.” A wonderful example of service learning came to me in an e-mail from a student in Professor Sherri Wall’s Students in Free Enterprise club. Their “Project Ummid” is just getting off the ground as a nonprofit effort focused on providing collateral-free micro loans to impoverished villagers in rural India for worthwhile business ventures.

The students’ current project is providing women in rural India with funds to buy cows, which will be used to sell milk directly to a fruit and dairy company. The company has agreed to keep the cows used through the micro loans at their stables. All of the milk is sold to the company daily, which eliminates any chance of the milk going to waste and ensures payment of the loan. The project expects a 50 percent increase in the income of their first client’s family of four. As the fruit and dairy increases, so does demand for cows to produce milk.

The students hope to use this model for more villagers in India as they acquire more capital for the project. This is an example of a double-win where the students learn and serve for a greater good improving the health and prosperity of a community.

These students are hosting a fundraiser to buy cows on Oct. 25 in the Moore Hall recreation center. Indian food will be served while guests enjoy live Indian entertainment. I wish I had thought of the club and this project. Call the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Management for details.

Stories like these give me a lot of hope for our future organizations. We are trying to teach students philanthropic responsibility that they will remember when they become business leaders. Think about what else your organization and your co-workers do to make our Fairbanks community a better place to live. Are there any organizations in Fairbanks interested in adopting Salvation Army Christmas kettles or food bank shifts? This is one way to find a balance within life and work.

Charlie Dexter is a professor of applied business at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Tanana Valley Campus. He can be reached at 455-2837 or ffcnd@uaf.edu. This column is provided as a public service of the TVC Applied Business Department. Copies of this column can be found at www.CharlieDexter.com.