Corporate social responsibility (CSR) represents something of a rare occurrence for businesses — a mutually beneficial venture for companies and the communities they serve.
While the latter reaps the fruits of the outreach effort, CSR lets the former tell the story of their brands to new audiences and make valuable local connections.
Despite the obvious benefits, however, many companies see CSR as a financial burden not worth pursuing. As someone who weaved CSR into their business model, I don’t understand the hesitation. There’s evidence connecting philanthropic work to better financial performance and positive branding, and the dividends the community sees are undeniable.
To me, avoiding CSR indicates a lack of understanding of its benefits or a misalignment of human and social values. Even if it can be difficult to achieve executive buy-in, CSR’s positives far outstrip the negatives for all parties.
CSR’s Bottom-Line Benefits
CSR can unearth the potential of the company that participates in it. It provides insight into existing practices, cuts costs, and creates a more profitable operating environment.
By refining their processes to impact the community, companies not only get a general picture of how their businesses operate, but they also gain a holistic picture of the market from a new angle. That means new information on prospective buyers and previously unseen opportunities.
From a cost-cutting perspective, CSR’s impact is twofold. First, CSR actions in communities promote goodwill, which often leads to positive press. Thanks to this positive exposure, companies can shift advertising dollars away from more expensive channels and direct it toward cheaper, more impactful CSR initiatives.
Secondly, effective CSR creates meaningful change in the community, which nurtures an environment more conducive to good business. As the community improves, more businesses and individuals get involved, and the company that spearheaded the initiative receives more positive attention and patronage from the people reaping the benefits of that outreach.
Get The Bigwigs’ Buy-In
Board members and executives often hesitate to loosen the purse strings when leaders try to convince them to invest in CSR. Use these strategies to highlight the benefits and get a CSR strategy started:
1. Use case studies. Show stakeholders some individual stories of CSR success. For example, I contribute to the Rongxiang Xu Bioscience Innovation Center, which will include the LA BioSpace incubator. This gives students support that helps them become strong contributors to the bioscience community. By investing in this CSR effort, I am not only providing a positive community impact, but I’m also helping to educate the kinds of people my company needs to succeed.
2. Emphasize the value beyond finances. Go past the balance sheet to demonstrate the positive results your CSR initiative generates. Through our work at the Clinton Global Initiative, we provided mentorship and support to a student from Africa. This student ultimately went to the University of California, Berkeley; after graduation, he returned to Africa to start his own company. Efforts like this create a positive impact on the world while attaching a company’s name to that positivity.
3. Look inward. Changing business practices to incorporate CSR provides companies the opportunity to evaluate areas for improvement. Investments in CSR have been shown to result in improved recruitment, increased retention, and better overall company performance. Convince executives with examples like that of Marks & Spencer, which developed better customer engagement while cutting costs through its Plan A program.
4. Focus on the numbers. If nothing else will convince leadership of the importance of CSR, the raw data will. Consumers are more socially conscious than ever, and 75% of them will take action against a company they consider irresponsible, according to a study by Aflac, FleishmanHillard Research, and Lightspeed GMI. That can mean anything from badmouthing the brand on social media to outright boycotts, all of which can cause serious damage to a company’s bottom line.
CSR isn’t just the ethical thing to do — it’s also the savviest business practice. Use these strategies to show executives, board members and other stakeholders that CSR is not just another charity effort, but a real investment in the futures of both the company and the communities in which it operates.
This article was taken from here.