But there is no backside for several businesses in Southwest Florida.

For these companies and businessmen and businesswomen, giving is a part of the package, the business plan, practically the pro forma. Seeing needs and meeting them are part of what defines their companies and, according to every one of them, part of what makes them successful and fulfilled.

"It's simply good business to be a good citizen in the community," says Steve Pontius, executive vice president and general manager of Fort Myers-based Waterman Broadcasting Corp.

These companies not only meet community needs, they build a deeper sense of worth among employees, they build reputations for character and, as a critical example to all of us, demonstrate what can be done in practical ways to minimize the pressures on government to "do something." We all have seen over the years how often that "do-something" force results in exacerbating a bad situation or creating a new problem, such as providing welfare to single moms based on number of children.

These companies are on the front lines of privatizing without ever using that word or politicized concept, but simply by "doing the right thing"-the topic of a symposium put on by the Business Network of Southwest Florida.

They come at doing right from different directions, but with similar desired results.

Pontius has looked to his own employees' needs beyond the paycheck. He developed a core list of values for Waterman Broadcasting to boost morale in a high-pressure, moderate-paying industry. The list included positive attitudes, empowerment, respect and dignity. Employees who can inculcate these values into their lives are not only more productive; they may be happier as people.

"Community service and social responsibility can be internal as well as external," he says.

Pontius can tick off a dozen other companies in Southwest Florida that operate under the philosophy of doing right within the community and helping those in need.

David Lucas is chairman of The Bonita Bay Group and draws from his Christian faith the concept of "stewardship"-rightly handling all that God has placed him steward over.

"That is the foundation of my thinking," he says. "I've been blessed and feel a responsibility to do the right thing with others." Lucas says taxes are an obligation, but serving others is an honor.

He has been, or is on, the boards of community foundations, the United Way, the Public School Foundation, the Health Education Center and Westminister Presbyterian Church. But his service goes beyond providing leadership to organizations.

While walking his dogs one day, he realized that his company had such a good year that it should give something back to the community-something that the company does in many ways.

The result: the beginnings of a town-center type of park along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Dunbar, a poor section of Fort Myers that is 92-percent black and which did not have the resources to do the project on its own.

Clemente Park, which is still a plan-in-progress, will be a place for children to play, with ballfields for everyone, a place for the Black Historical Society and other amenities. Bonita Bay donated $350,000 for the purchase of land; the city came up with the rest, and Lucas got other companies to donate their efforts.

Many developers donate land for parks, but that is normally a negotiated agreement in return for getting rezonings and other concessions from the local municipality. In this case, Bonita Bay simply saw a need in a nearby community and decided to help meet it.

The company also believes that helping those in need begins at home. So it has its own first-time homebuyer program for employees, including a $5,000 interest-free loan that is 40-percent forgiven if the employee stays onboard at least five years. "That was a 'what-can-we-do-to-help?'" Lucas says of the program.

Carol Conway, founder of CRS Technology, comes at it from a different perspective. Conway admits up front that she got involved with a few local charities in order to make business connections. But a funny thing happened.

"I started feeling pretty good about doing the right thing," she says. Even when the company went through a painful downturn that resulted in cutting half of its employees, it continued contributing to Habitat for Humanity, the United Way and other groups, and it tried to be generous to the employees it let go. "You do the right things sometimes because you just know it is the right thing," she says.

For instance, her company has been working with the Special Olympics, Ronald McDonald House, Boy Scouts of America and the Pilot Club, a professional-women's group that helps in the community, including folks with brain-related disorders and special needs.

When enough companies take seriously the needs of people around them, they can make a real difference in lives and, therefore, in their communities. They cannot replace the welfare programs that government provides, but they can make a dent, and in a way that does not trap folks in the poverty and welfare-reliance cycle.

Lee and Collier counties and their municipalities have welfare nets to exhaust before even considering use of state-funded and federal welfare. All these programs have been successful in redistributing hundreds of billions of dollars, but they have been failures at providing a better way of life for many of those that they help.

Local companies, charities and government working together is a much more effective combination. "Are social responsibility and the bottom line mutually exclusive?" Pontius asks. "I don't think so."

Rod Thomson can be reached by e-mail at rod@plow.org.