5 Tips For Effective Corporate Social Responsibility
1. Align your cause with your business
If your company is in the personal care business it probably doesn’t have the resources to really help fix the education system. Why not give to a cause where you can leverage your skills, connections, or resources? To decide what cause to pursue, examine the social and environmental hazards of your industry, and think of ways to address them in ways that would also give your company an advantage and prove your competency. Find out what causes your customers care about. The Council on Foundations reports that 65% of Americans would switch to a brand associated with a good cause price and quality being equal.
2. Before you begin
Have rules for selecting a charity that clearly state how charitable donations are granted and to whom to create a sense of fairness; don’t just select a charity because a senior manager has a preference. Plan your brand messaging, budgeting, strategy, and plans to coordinate your company resources and have everyone committed. Get all employees motivated and involved by having internal communications (newsletters, posters, emails). Employee volunteerism is proven to increase leadership skills and job satisfaction. If it’s supported by paid time off, it even helps boost company reportable giving contributions. Instead of just assigning a leader, cross functional teams or committees are more effective in implementing corporate social responsibility initiatives. Marketing should take the lead on social-responsibility programs; they can find opportunities for product differentiation and customer loyalty that integrate solutions to social and environmental problems.
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Why Corporate Social Responsibility Should Matter to You
Corporate social responsibility is an important-sounding phrase, but what exactly is it? Well, increasingly nowadays corporations have to be seen to act in a social, ethical and responsible manner. This arose because of the changing perception of the environment, the developing world and all the other issues of our time. Corporations have a huge influence over all these things – often a negative influence, for example in cutting down rainforests and employing children to make shoes for westerners. Social responsibility is the effort to give something back and improve, not exploit, conditions in poorer areas of the world.
Social responsibility isn’t just an ethical concern – it makes good business sense too. Every time a consumer doesn’t buy a brand of clothing because they’ve heard it’s made by children it hurts the business they’ve shunned. Consumers vote with their wallets and it’s important to present a good company image, otherwise you risk people choosing someone else.
So how can corporations embrace social responsibility? After all, there’s probably some kind of outlay involved and no-one likes spending money where they don’t have to. Well, cultural change within the institution is normally the first port of call. It’s imperative to change the attitudes of management so that they understand being socially responsible can actually benefit the business further down the line. The perception of your company within the target market can make or break your business in the long-term.
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The Importance Of Business Ethics
Business ethics concerns itself with the choices exercised by the people in organizations in terms of decisions and actions. Some choices are considered to be good and some are not. But there are no standard definitions. A lot of the choice depends on the perspective of what is good for the business and from whose point of view.
One common earlier point of view is that what is good for the owners or for the shareholders is good for the business. All economically profitable actions and decisions are considered to be good in this perspective. All organizational behavior of the individuals and groups is oriented in such perspective towards profit generation with a single minded focus.
The danger with such a view or behavior is that sometimes it can be damaging others who are not shareholders, but who are affected by such behavior and decisions. Laws which govern such business behavior and choices deal with legally right and wrong aspects; they do not and cannot deal with morally right or wrong choices, so long as they are not legally wrong.
And this can lead to ‘clever’ legally defendable, but otherwise damaging choices in business, damaging to customers, to society, to government and to stakeholders other than only the shareholders. An emerging point of view which is slowly gaining wider acceptance is that the greater good of all the stakeholders needs to be considered and organizational choices have to be made in line with such considerations, if the business has to be considered as operating with business ethics.