Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Advice
for ethics, strategies & operations
My advice for corporate social responsibility (CSR) is
different than most anything else you will read on the Internet, hear at
a workshop or conference or read in a book.
My advice is meant to be provocative.
It's meant to be disruptive. Because CSR needs to be disrupted.
CSR, particularly as it relates to philanthropy and employee
volunteering, needs to be absolutely upended and rethought.
I'm sharing information and approaches
and complaints related to corporate philanthropy here on my web site
that many nonprofit, NGO and public school staff want to say
to corporations and foundations, but they've been too afraid to do so
- but I've been listening oh-so-carefully, and I'm happy to share
their not-so-kind criticisms, because it's overdue for them to be
shared and for CSR programs to be improved.
My advice regarding CSR comes from experiences both as the
corporate philanthropy representative at a Fortune 500 company and as the
program liaison with various corporate funders and partners, in the USA
and in other countries, over thirty years.
My CSR Resources
- The philosophy behind these CSR resources
& why it matters
How my advice regarding corporate social responsibility is different
than what you have heard elsewhere - and why.
- Advice for Designing & Launching
CSR Activities
If your company is launching a CSR program, including a program for
financial donations, employee volunteering
or in-kind donations, or your company
wants to think more strategically about the CSR activities it's
already undertaking, this is where you start.
- What Should Be On A Company Web Site Re:
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Members of the public, members of the press, politicians, activists,
mission-based organizations (nonprofits, schools, charities, etc.) and
even your own employees will want to be able to access at least
summary information about your company's corporate social
responsibility activities (CSR). Your web site needs to cater to the
information needs of all of these different groups. Here's what
absolutely needs to be on your web site regarding your CSR activities,
as well as some additional suggestions beyond the basics.
- Employee Volunteering Initiatives:
Different Approaches & Keys to Success
Detailed advice for employee volunteering, including specific advice
regarding executives on loan, expert staff
going on volunteering sabbaticals, and employees serving on boards,
skills-based volunteering, group
volunteering (everything from Habitat for Humanity builds to
hackathons), employees volunteering abroad, virtual
volunteering and microvolunteering.
- In-kind giving (product and other
equipment donations)
Your facilities department may have already been giving away surplus
furniture to nonprofits without reporting it to whatever department is
in charge of your philanthropic activities. Your marketing department
may have bought a table at a special event for the local ballet. Your
IT department head may have donated his staff's time for half a day to
a nonprofit he cares about. You need to get all of these activities
under written policies and appropriately tracked.
- Coping With Community Disasters /
Emergency Appeals
Before your company starts a clothing drive to help hurricane victims,
sending employees into neighborhoods or sending money to the first
disaster-aid organization that comes to mind, read this advice.
- Advice for Celebrity Philanthropy and
Activism
Many celebrities see their fame as an opportunity to help improve
people's lives, encourage better treatment of the environment, address
an injustice, even to advance legislation, and it's a tradition for
celebrities to champion causes and lend their name to help various
charitable or activist causes. But many celebrities don't think
strategically about the philanthropic and activist activities they
might want to undertake. The result of not being strategic may be
wasted energy and even negative publicity, despite the best of
intentions. And some celebrities are so overwhelmed with requests to
contribute in some way to a charitable effort, human rights campaign
or environmental cause that they just say no to everything rather than
try to screen and evaluate them all. This web page is meant to give
celebrities, or their staff members, some very basic resources to help
their philanthropy and activist activities be effective, actually make
a positive difference and not be completely overwhelming.
- Understanding the culture of nonprofits,
schools and other mission-based organizations
They are different than the corporate world - and you could learn a
lot from them. Understanding and respecting their culture will make
your giving more effective.
- Stop with the demands for limits on overhead spending
- Coming
soon
Just like a for-profit business, nonprofits, charities and other
mission-based organizations have to pay rent, pay for computers, pay
for upgrades to computers, pay for qualified staff with particular
skills and more. Your limits on your donations being used for
"overhead" are hurting those served by nonprofits. ENOUGH! This page
includes better advice on how to ensure your financial contributions
are being used efficiently and appropriately.
- Effective partnerships with mission-based organizations
- Coming
soon
Keys to working with nonprofits, charities, NGOs, schools and other
mission-driven agencies. This resource will help you regularly,
honestly answer the question, "How good of a partner are we?"
- Options Regarding Financial Giving
- Coming
soon
Giving money is more than writing a check whenever you might be moved
or whenever someone asks. Setting guidelines for how you will give
financial donations, and how much, keeps staff on the same page and
will cut down on inappropriate requests.
- Responsible & Ethical Business Practices as a Part of CSR
- Coming
soon
Corporate social
responsibility isn't limited to just philanthropy - financial
donations, in-kind donations,
employee volunteering, etc. It's also
about responsible and ethical business practices beyond what is
required by law, such as sustainable environmental practices
(recycling, responsible waste management, use of energy-efficient
lights) and activities that address environmental impact pay equity
(women paid the same as men for the same work) inclusive hiring and
promotion practices (ensuring women and ethic minorities have access
to senior management positions) and more.
- Evaluating your CSR approaches & reporting results
- Coming
soon
How do you know if your philanthropic activities are garnering
results, because good public relations? Number of employee volunteer
hours says as much as success as number of staff members you have -
it's mostly just a number.
- Talking about your CSR activities - internally and externally
- Coming
soon
Guidance for your internal and external communications
regarding your CSR activities.
Consider:
- The Pitfalls of Having a Program
Sponsor
(and suggestions for mission-based organizations on how to avoid
them)
For-profit companies, particularly large corporations, often sponsor
specific programs at mission-based organizations (non-profit
organizations, non-governmental organizations/NGOs, civil society,
school, etc.), providing funding, donated staff time, and in-kind
equipment and services to help launch and maintain a program. In most
ways, this is a blessing for the mission-based organization. But there
are often hidden costs that lead to frustrations for everyone
involved. This is a list of some of those
hidden costs, and ways they can be avoided.
I'm Jayne Cravens. I'm a
consultant regarding communications and community engagement, primarily
for nonprofits, NGOs and other mission-based organizations. I have many
years of experience working with corporations, governments, foundations
and other donors, and for two years, I ran a corporate philanthropy
program at a Fortune 500 company. I created these corporate social
responsibility (CSR) pages on my web site out of frustration of the
continuing disconnect between what mission-based organizations,
including schools, are trying to accomplish and what corporations and
other businesses want to fund and volunteer for. Most advice for CSR
comes from people in the for-profit world who have never worked for a
nonprofit, charity, public school, etc., and often has a paternal
approach to working with mission-based organizations. My approach is
different: I am urging the business world to be partners, not
dictators, when it comes to the third sector.
Here are the services I can provide
regarding CSR.
I have a range of other consulting
services as well.
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Disclaimer: No guarantee of accuracy or suitability is made by the
poster/distributor. This material is provided as is, with no expressed
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The art work and material on this
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by Jayne Cravens, all rights reserved
(unless noted otherwise, or the art comes from a link to another
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