Wednesday 18 January 2012

CSR and Social Impact

At the beginning of the year, it is customary to make a list of top 5s or top 10s of several global events. I thought of delving into the top 5 reasons for companies to invest in CSR as well as key success factors. Weber Shandwick and KRC Research did in fact conduct a research in October 2010 and surveyed 200 CSR executives and have come up with the following 5 reasons/ success factors:
1. Having an Impact on critical issues in society and seeing an organization's value in action
2. Non-profits as partners are vital to the success of CSR
3. Almost 90% of the executives said that Senior Leadership Support drives CSR success
4. Companies prefer to tackle multiple issues as part of their CSR (environment, education, global development etc)
5. Employee engagement and Community Engagement are equally important factors for the success of CSR efforts.

The implications of the study is immense as it reiterates several beliefs that drives CSR initiatives as well as underline the importance of stakeholder engagement - both internal and external. The fact that companies are looking beyond checkbook philanthropy  to actually making a social impact and actively engaging in societal issues is very heartening. It is also great news for Non-profit organizations as the large corporations view them as "valuable partners'  who bring in the necessary expertise. It is also good to hear that companies are concerned about a variety of critical issues spanning education, environment and many other issues aligned to their core competencies and business objectives.

Overall, the  outlook for CSR and corporates engagement with society looks positive and CSR investments are all set to increase in 2012 and beyond.

The know more about the study and its findings do visit:  impact.webershandwick.com








1 comment:

  1. I actually enjoyed reading through this posting.Many thanks.


    UPS Chennai

    ReplyDelete