The term “corporate social responsibility” (CSR) appeared in the early 1970s and was perceived solely as ethics and morality in the business environment.
Now, the company is responsible for the following:
- Employees for conditions and decent wages
- Consumers for the quality of services or products
- Business partners for the integrity of the partnership
- Society for activities, including advertising
- The local community of the area where she works
Why Should Businesses Voluntarily Solve Social Problems?
It is not enough to say that your company exists and does its job well. According to research, 71% of consumers are willing to abandon brands that only work for money.
Marketing is becoming more socially ethical, and large companies invest millions in CSR implementation, writes Forbes. And for that, they get:
- Bonuses in the form of tax incentives
- The Loyalty of Own Employees
- A new level of relations with state bodies.
Personal Motives
The head of the company is a person with his interests, preferences, aspirations, fears, stereotypes, and life experience. It can have different values:
- Contributing to the present and future
- Assistance to people in difficult life situations
- Religious beliefs
- Development of a friendly direction, hobby
- Participation in something previously unattainable
Corporate Motives
If you want to help those in need, it’s charity.
Related material: The media’s role in the company’s image.
If your business employs people with disabilities, it is social entrepreneurship. The company both makes a profit and gives work to people with disabilities.
Regulatory Documents for Socially Responsible Businesses
Each company develops its corporate social responsibility strategy, but there are generally accepted documents:
- The UN Global compact
- National standard ISO 26 000 “Social Responsibility Guide”
- Reporting standards GRI and АА1000
- Other international instruments in the field of sustainable development
Who is a Socially Responsible Company?
You can see the list of companies on the site.
The USA Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs website has a national register of non-financial reports.
How to Become a Socially Responsible Business
You realize that your company needs to become socially responsible. How to do it?
It will help the charity department, marketing, PR, and HR. Employees begin to do good deeds within or beyond their core responsibilities.
Help with your company can help specialists from Exiterra.com Digital Agency.
For example, a hotel chain helps families who have lost their homes in a fire or other disaster. The hotel has allocated a separate room and accommodates fire victims for the first time. The staff helps with restoring documents and the purchase of clothes and essentials. The hotel also provides meals to those in need. The media department has agreed to be regularly informed of such incidents.
- Example: Record a PSA as a company ZEWA.
Through a corporate fund, Management is undertaken by specially hired employees. This option is suitable when the company organizes everything and realizes that it wants to help well. Such funds are becoming more popular and are already working in Rural, USA Railways, and others.
Through a crowdfunding platform, A separate corporate entrance is created for each employee, where he chooses an NPO and makes personal donations, for which the company rewards him additionally.
It is convenient through a non-profit organization (NPO) when a company wants to become socially oriented but lacks appropriate staff. The organization transfers funds for the implementation of the NPO program.
Directly to beneficiaries on the recommendation of the NGO. In this case, the NPO only provides contacts, and the company itself helps.
By studying data service, Dobro Mail, about a third of medium and small companies in the USA are engaged in charity. Big business considers it part of a common strategy, an element of a management standard.
According to the results of “Leaders of Corporate Charity – 2019”, in 2018, 32 large companies donated $10,000,000. Three years ago, 60 companies invested less than $10,000,000. Thus, businesses’ CSR budgets grew by almost three times.
Funding goes to projects in education, ecology, health, and the development of local communities.
How to Develop CSR in a Company
The direction can be chosen based on personal preferences or the advice of volunteer staff, selecting from the existing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) developed by the UN General Assembly as “a blueprint for a better and more continual future for all.”
It is getting to know local NGOs and choosing one that needs more support. It can happen through the government’s resource center or the administration of your city, at an NGO fair, or at charity festivals.
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