by Lindsay Nash | Oct 7, 2022 | Article
“To do good, you actually have to do something.” – Yvon Chouinard
The founder of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, stunned and inspired the world recently when he gave away his company to combat climate change and protect undeveloped land across the globe.
For a half-century, Chouinard and his outdoor apparel company established themselves as the de facto leader in what we now call corporate social responsibility, giving away one percent of its sales for decades, mostly to grassroots environmental activism.
In his latest move, he’s transferred his ownership of Patagonia, valued at $3 billion, to a trust and nonprofit organisation to ensure the company’s annual profits of some $100 million are used to combat climate change.
“Instead of ‘going public,’ you could say we’re ‘going purpose,’” Chouinard said in a statement from Patagonia.
Corporate social responsibility and “corporate purpose” are on the rise, and pioneering leaders like Chouinard are bringing the movement to new heights. Let’s take a look at why CSR matters and how it can impact our business and our world.
Corporate social responsibility and purpose-driven corporate giving programs are not new. In fact, they have been around for centuries.
In the early 1800s, the advent of purpose clauses began to appear in corporate charters from European churches, colonial and early American municipalities, and business corporations to establish the growing separation between church and state. A shift began to emerge where corporations found new ways of expressing their values and purposes outside of the formal legal charter.
The following Industrial Revolution in the mid-to-late 1800s then heralded new concerns about worker wellbeing. There were growing criticisms of the emerging factory system, which was linked to social ills such as poverty and labour unrest. Labour relations became an important topic at the same time as the emergence of philanthropy, especially in the United States, when business magnates Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller began donating tremendous portions of their wealth to educational, religious and scientific causes.
In a nutshell, industrialisation could both help and harm society, and corporations began to realise they had a responsibility to positively impact society.
In our current corporate landscape, corporate social responsibility has been defined as a management concept in which companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and interactions with their stakeholders. Another way to put it: CSR places the responsibility of impact on the company.
It’s also known as “the triple bottom line,” referencing a business’s impact on the three “Ps”: people, profits and the planet.
Governing bodies such as the United Nations, the European Union and the ISO 2600 on social responsibility have developed frameworks to help guide corporations on purpose-driven initiatives, making corporate social responsibility programs–on any scale–more accessible than ever before.
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Why is corporate social responsibility important? Why should your business or organisation give it any thought? The United Nations explains it perfectly:
“A properly implemented CSR concept can bring along a variety of competitive advantages, such as enhanced access to capital and markets, increased sales and profits, operational cost savings, improved productivity and quality, efficient human resource base, improved brand image and reputation, enhanced customer loyalty, better decision making and risk management processes.”
But, really, it’s about more than a corporate competitive advantage. There is a growing propensity worldwide, and especially prevalent for millenials, to better care for our world, foster environmental sustainability and directly confront the soaring challenges facing humanity.
More and more, corporations are looking to partner with nonprofit organisations to help increase their social impact. This makes it easy for corporations to hit the ground running with a trusted partner that aligns with their own values.
“While there are many benefits for nonprofits, I have also seen the benefits of corporate groups engaging in such programs,” said Molly Heggeland, with Rise Against Hunger, a nonprofit that engages with corporate partners and their employees to support their mission to end hunger.
“Especially in today’s environment, creating an engaging corporate culture is very important, and by partnering with nonprofits through corporate giving and CSR programs, corporations can make an impact on those they are serving and their employees alike,” Heggeland said.
“I have been able to see the direct benefits of corporate programs through corporate volunteers packaging millions of meals for children in school feeding programs, employee giving campaigns providing supplies for disaster relief, cause marketing campaigns creating community gardens, and more.”
As Chouinard tells us, to do good, you actually have to do something. We can talk about CSR and what an impactful initiative it is all day. But you simply have to start it. Your program can be as small as a new purpose statement or as revolutionary as Patagonia’s CSR strategy. It’s up to you, and the first step is simply to get started! It doesn’t have to be perfect to be good. Most of your learnings will be along the way.
Our world cannot wait.
Here are some steps to help you get started.
This is where you bring together your community and ask what’s important. It’s an excellent time to look through the frameworks mentioned above from the United Nations, the EU, the ISO 2600, or countless other online resources to help you decide what’s most important to your organisation, your community and your stakeholders.
It should align with your company mission and values, and pull focus to what’s important to you, whether it’s environmental, ethical, economical or philanthropic initiatives.
It’s likely you’ve practised some form of corporate giving in the past, whether it’s offering employees paid volunteer days, participating in a company-wide GivingTuesday or offering a donation match for philanthropic initiatives. This could also include small, random acts of goodness you see across your team, such as recycling initiatives or small bake sales for a favourite charity in the community. Nothing is too small to consider and include.
Create a list of what you currently do, and solicit feedback from your team. What promotes engagement? What does your team and company care about?
Decide what works, and what doesn’t. What provides impact? What doesn’t?
You’ve done your research and defined what’s important to your organisation in driving social impact. Now, it’s time to formalise your plan and present it to your team. This includes stakeholders such as a board of directors, the organisational management team and relevant members of your organisation and community.
By including your stakeholders from the onset, you’ll enjoy early adoption and excitement over the CSR initiatives.
Now it’s time for the fun part! This is also the most important step—when you get to the business of actually doing something. Whether your CSR is small or big, this is where you take those first steps. Remember: it doesn’t have to be perfect.
A few considerations for managing your program successfully:
Like any new initiative, it’s important to set up measurable goals for your program so you can evaluate the positive impact along the way. Your stakeholders will want to see any outcomes, and it’s important to provide regular insights and data into the CSR program’s performance.
From community investments to business innovations and social impact, it can be challenging to determine what you want to measure, and how. And this mostly depends on your own CSR goals and initiatives.
But, there are frameworks that can guide you, including the B4SI framework which works to help companies understand the impact their contributions make to business and society.
Look at what’s measurable in your CSR program. This could be the amount of funding you provide, employee engagement and participation and even your bottom line, including revenues and profits.
In some countries, it’s mandatory for corporations to publish CSR reports annually. The release of an online CSR report is both great for marketing and public relations and for providing accountability to your stakeholders.
Your program won’t be perfect out the gate. You’ll have learnings along the way. To drive continuous improvement for your CSR initiatives, solicit feedback from internal and external stakeholders. Create surveys and ask for feedback. It will only help your program in the long run.
Remember, it takes time to create social impact. Don’t be discouraged if your CSR program doesn’t look like Yvon Chouinard’s at Patagonia. Yes, dream big. Yes, think about the long-term. But, to do good, you actually have to do something. And it all starts with taking that first step.
Learn about our CSR initiatives at Creative Force, the parent company of Good Grants.
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