Much has been written in the last couple of decades about what goes into creating a successful startup. Factors such as team building, maintaining diverse viewpoints, and having a shared passion are well-known, commonly-traded ground at this point.

What you don’t hear come up often is the power that philanthropy can have in encouraging these critical factors at a young company. While many startup founders might think of philanthropy as something they will get to down the road, we have seen at our own organization how it can have a powerful and positive impact early on at the most critical aspects of a startup.

Enhancing Teamwork Through a Common Cause

ADCAM is the name of the school that my company has been supporting since 2011. It is located in a poverty-stricken neighborhood in Manaus, Brazil. Every year, our team gets together to raise money so that more orphans and kids from poor families can go to school and receive an education— a scarce enough resource in Manaus.

Once you pick a cause and set the goal, it takes a great deal of teamwork and collaboration to achieve it. The rub is that, as momentum grows, so does your team’s enthusiasm and collaborative power. The amount we have been able to raise rises each year— our team is invigorated, and they’re motivated to work together in increasingly innovative ways to hit new targets each year.

Our main fundraising effort for ADCAM is an annual silent auction. The enthusiasm stimulated by this project is evident by the diversity and liveliness of this single-day event. At this point, our annual auction is practically like a mini World Expo. Participants can bid on items as far-afield as Indian jewelry, Momo dumplings from Nepal, or an authentic Persian meal prepared by a colleague. The bidding can be fierce, but the drive to curate quality items for auction is intense, too. The passion in helping a common cause has spurred new heights of team building, collective ownership and collaboration. An additional benefit? An increased awareness of the diverse cultures and perspectives that ends up bringing our team closer together.

Creating a Positive Business Culture

It is now commonly accepted that happy employees are the most valuable assets to any organization. In fact, Gallup estimates that an unhappy and disengaged workforce has cost America a staggering $300 billion in lost productivity annually. Underscoring this data, economists from Warwick Business School found that happier workers were 12% more productive while unhappy workers were 10% less productive.

So, who is happiest in the workplace? A study run at the University of Chicago showed that high-income jobs took a backseat to other types of jobs on the Top Ten Happiest Jobs list – service-oriented occupations. By and large, those whose work centers on helping others (such as firefighters or special education teachers) have the highest level of job satisfaction.

It’s not easy to create this dynamic at a startup. Especially when so many jobs involve little interaction with others. Take programmers for example: Each day they go to work, stay in their cube, and write code all day long. Sure, cracking a difficult problem can bring some satisfaction, but what if the work you do helps bring joy, hope, and stability to a little girl who was once running barefoot in the street? Introducing corporate philanthropy can provide that extra jolt of job satisfaction that makes all the difference creating a highly-productive, passion-driven startup.

Adding a Global Dimension to Routine Work

A company is a living organism in that it needs constant, new and dynamic input to thrive. We keep our bodies engaged with, ideally, an ever-widening scope of family, entertainment, work, exercise, and so on. Are we doing the same for our startups?

A company needs new and expansive initiatives that keep the team forward-thinking and engaged. As a company, we spend a lot of time together in all sorts of entertainments, such as potlucks, picnics, and watching the Giants together after work; the logistics of running our business day in and day out are, of course, the “work” part of our organism, and adapting to changes and growth are like “exercise.” What’s missing? A thriving and expanding connection to the outside world— a global perspective. Think of someone who has never travelled outside the borders of his country, or even his town. How different is his perspective (and abilities) from someone who has seen the world?

By supporting a school located near the source of the Amazon River, we have added a global dimension to our company, exposing our team to a totally different culture and enhancing our perspective on our company and our work.

The hidden power of corporate philanthropy can be immense for startups. In the long run, these “soul perks” can be the differentiating factors that allow your company to excel.

Frank Zamani is the founder and CEO of Caspio.