Small businesses receive numerous donation requests each month. Filling them requires a balance of resources.

Five gallons of corn chowder could practically feed an army — and cooking such a large quantity of food takes ample time, ingredients and kitchen staff.

Yet that is exactly how much chowder Constantly Pizza recently donated to the Concord Coalition to End Homelessness’s Souper Fest.

Brothers John and Dave Constant have run the downtown pizzeria for the past 36 years, broadening their sense of family with every slice they serve because, for them, everyone deserves a smile and, if necessary, a helping hand.

“We try and do the best we can to help people out,” said Dave. “We can’t always do everything, but we try to do our very best for our community, for Concord, the Greater Concord area.”

The brothers receive three to six requests for donations each week, and they’re not alone. Small businesses like theirs can sometimes be inundated with charitable asks.

Constantly, which began by supporting Little League teams decades ago, gets queries from customers, nonprofits, sports teams and more, with people asking for food, gift cards to raffle off and sometimes monetary contributions toward a specific cause. At Rock’nRace next month, the pair is planning to provide 50 pizzas and 600 cookies to support Concord Hospital’s Payson Center for Cancer Care.

“It’s kind of the way we were raised, to help people out,” said John.

The pizzeria prioritizes local causes or ones with community ties. If they can’t meet a request, often they’ll offer an alternative, like gift cards rather than a cash donation. They recently raised $1,535 for the Special Olympics by donating 20% of all proceeds from a designated night to the endeavor.

“I think our business model, by helping our community, has made us this successful today because of that,” said Dave. “Our success is due to that. It’s not really due to the marketing. It’s due to giving back to our community.”

They find that the support they show for different organizations often earns them new customers. But that’s not why they do it — they contribute because they can.

If someone reaches out because a local child has lost a parent, they’ll give gift cards to the family to assist with food, John said. During the pandemic, they provided several thousand dollars in gift cards to staff at Concord Hospital. Following the 2023 killing of a security guard at New Hampshire Hospital, they gave each employee there a gift card as a show of solidarity.

Not every business takes the same approach. And as the Constant brothers acknowledge, the donation requests can be a lot to manage, especially while keeping the normal business operations steady. Yet Concord’s small businesses overwhelmingly show up for the customers they serve.

For Sarah Glaude, who co-owns Social Club Creamery alongside her husband, fielding donation requests, like all things, requires balance.

They’ve begun setting aside funds each quarter to respond to requests, although the pair receives far too many to fill them all.

It’s an experience Glaude suspects most downtown businesses have to maneuver: “I think people would be shocked at how many requests, like if we did a survey of all the downtown businesses and added them up all together, of how many you get in a year.”

On average, Social Club receives three to five charitable asks a week, but during the holiday season, that number skyrockets.

“Because of that, we’ve actually had to be super thoughtful and intentional with who we choose and how we choose to support different organizations,” said Glaude. “We tend to prioritize causes that we feel personally connected to, so whether that’s somebody on our team, our customers, or something that aligns with us and our values personally.”

Halfway through the month of April, they’ve donated $350: $100 in gift cards for teacher appreciation week and $250 toward a local marathon runner. Cash donations don’t always feel financially feasible, however.

More often, Social Club will donate a tray of cookies or, like Constantly, offer gift cards. But even cookies require ingredients, and ingredients cost money and take effort to prepare.

“On one hand, it creates more of a time constraint, because somebody might have to stay a little bit longer or spend extra time, like time is money, right?” she said. “So our baker might have to spend extra time making donation cookies, where she could be making other types of products that we sell.”

Local nonprofit InTown Concord recently published information on social media promoting alternatives to asking small businesses for cash or product donations. The organization listed production costs, staff time, marketing and lost profit margins as some of the potentially detrimental impacts businesses can experience.

Some of those alternatives include collaborating with a business on a fundraiser, creating a percentage-of-sales partnership — like what Constantly did with the Special Olympics —and utilizing a business as a donation drop-off spot. Online donation-request forms can also go a long way in reducing the amount of time staff spend fielding requests on different platforms, InTown stated.

Still, part of what makes the relationship successful is when each party is willing to meet the other where they’re at.

The Concord Food Co-Op has systems in place to respond to donation requests, namely the Round-It-Up program, where local nonprofits can apply to receive a month’s worth of donations made by customers who opt to round up to the nearest dollar for that specific cause upon check-out.

Other co-ops utilize the same system, said Marketing Manager Rachel Becker. In the seven years the Concord Food Co-Op has been doing Round-It-Up, the grocery store has raised and donated $229,117 to local nonprofits. In March, over 3,100 people rounded up for NH Mutual Aid, raising a total of $1,510 for the organization.

The Co-Op receives many donation requests outside of the program; Becker estimates between two and five asks come in each week, although it can vary. It’s her department’s job to sift through them. As they do so, there are considerations to weigh.

 “What can we give that will make a difference? Like, every little bit counts,” said Becker. “But I think in these situations, it’s really about how can we make a difference in the niches that we tend to live in, of supporting local, supporting initiatives that are around food security and then environmental things.”

Depending on an organization’s request — most often money — the grocery store makes around five or six donations a month. When they can’t fill a request but still want to support a cause, they offer a basket of products to raffle off or a tray of cookies for an event. Any money donated outside of Round-It-Up comes out of the marketing budget, since the increased visibility in the community ultimately fulfills one of the Co-Op’s goals and, by doing so, brings in more customers.

“It’s part of the bloodline of what being a co-op means, is you are trying to foster greater community,” Becker said.

It’s a symbiotic relationship between customers and businesses, with each party doing their best to meet the other where it’s at.

“I feel like, if you help people, they try to help you back later on. Even if they can’t at the moment, later on,” said John Constant.