There’s a lot being said about corporate social responsibility (CSR) and what companies are doing in the realm of corporate citizenship, philanthropy and social innovation. Today, as activist groups and the media increasingly hold companies accountable for their social actions, CSR has emerged as a key priority for business leaders. However, in order to be credible and effective, it’s important to perceive CSR as an opportunity to better the world while bettering your business, rather than as a damage control strategy or simply a publicity stunt to boost your image.
Companies should be able to uphold their obligation to consider the interests of their customers, employees and communities, while still achieving the ultimate goal of creating both social and corporate value. Here are a few tips to consider when creating corporate citizenship strategies that still positively influence the bottom line.
- Map back to your business goals. This is the golden rule. Far too many companies think about corporate citizenship in a generic fashion. Rather than tying corporate citizenship efforts back to business strategies, many companies participate in charitable deeds in random, haphazard ways. However, CSR provides a great opportunity to both benefit society and strengthen a company’s competitive advantage when the strategy aligns with a company’s core business. Take the female beauty company AVON, for example. AVON’s CSR commitment is also the company’s business strategy which focuses on women’s economic empowerment and supporting breast cancer and anti-domestic violence programs. If you’re in the food industry, it probably makes more sense to focus your efforts around the obesity epidemic or community hunger rather than fixing the education system. Be sure to align your cause with your business.
- Leverage the CEO as the voice for CSR. Executive support for corporate citizenship is critical for a company’s long-term success. When CEOs serve as the face of their company’s CSR efforts, it demonstrates how central social innovation is for the respective company and corresponding business strategy. Executive leaders can play a critical role in building credibility, trust and loyalists, however, to be credible, the CEO’s commitments must be genuine and sincere. Bill Gates, founder and former CEO of Microsoft, is arguably one of the biggest philanthropists of our time. His passion for giving back and creating positive change in the world through the power of technology is engrained in Microsoft’s company culture and evident throughout its CSR strategy and citizenship efforts.
- Measure your effectiveness. Measuring your results is critical for almost any initiative. If you’re not evaluating yourself, then how do you know whether you’re successful? In order to create a sustainable CSR strategy, it’s critical for companies to develop measurability tools so they can run a cost-benefit analysis on their CSR overheads. While implementing CSR measurement will look different for every company, you must set performance metrics and benchmark your initiatives.
Is your company successful in its CSR strategy? Do you have any additional tips? We want to hear from you!