Challenging the status quo in Corporate Social Responsibility…again

What I’m about to say isn’t new.  In fact, it’s been written about again and again.

So why am I bothering to write about what’s already been said?

Because I’m in the midst of designing a corporate social impact plan and I’ve fallen down the well-treaded rabbit hole of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programming.  And in all my readings and discussions, I’m faced with the reality that, despite much ink having been spilt about the importance of designing more intentional, impactful, community-building CSR programming, we are still very close to the same place we were years ago.

Back in 2015, Sacha Pfeiffer wrote an article in The Boston Globe about this very subject, stating that  “the unfortunate reality of corporate ‘days of service,’ well-meaning as they are, is that they can be burdensome, time-consuming headaches for nonprofits, and of dubious value.”

Just last year a friend asked me to help during a corporate conference. The corporation was coming to LA for a multi-day convening and wanted to include some volunteer service work in their conference agenda. The corporation contracted a local nonprofit to set up a hygiene kit assembly project for three hours on the last day of the event. The nonprofit had to purchase the supplies for the kit, recruit volunteers to manage the project, identify recipients in need of kits, order tables and chairs to set up the kit assembly line, and arrange drop-off and pick-up of the kits. At the end of the day the corporate employees assembled 500 hygiene kits, which were dispersed to individuals experiencing homelessness.

While the hygiene kits were welcomed by the nonprofit, the amount of work to execute the event, compared with the level of impact made by the work, was out of balance.  What’s more is that the event, as well meaning as it was, did not provide any opportunity for community-building, any opportunity for understanding the complexities that cause, prevent, or address homelessness, or any opportunity to understand how to make lasting impact on the issue of homelessness.

If, as Tim Stobierski writes in the Business Insights blog of Harvard Business School Online,  CSR seeks to “benefit the broader community in which it exists,” then shouldn’t corporate volunteer planning start by asking what the community needs first?  

The truth is that the CSR mantra is still too often “we want to help, but in our way, on our time, not too far from our offices, and please make sure there is enough parking.”

The truth is that most community and nonprofit needs are ongoing, and rarely one-time project based.

The truth is that community need and corporate engagement, nine years after Pfieffer’s article, are still, too often, out of sync.

But they don’t need to be.  

And the good news is that we are seeing more CSR initiatives that foster partnership, deepen understanding, and leverage a corporation’s unique position to address needs effectively.  

Some ways that CSR programs are enhancing their efforts include:

- convening stakeholder meetings to learn from the community and build ongoing relationships;

- conducting needs assessments to identify areas where corporations are best positioned to make an impact;

- committing to multi-year engagements that include project-based events and educational workshops for corporate employees;

- redirecting volunteer event funds towards nonprofit general operating support; and

- promoting on-going employee volunteer participation.

It is also important to remember that the onus is not merely on the corporations to ask for a different kind of engagement. Nonprofits must also be bravely willing to counteroffer when one-time, minimally engaged, volunteering is requested.

If a stronger demand to center the community continues to come from both the corporations and the nonprofits when designing CSR engagement, maybe, just maybe, we will stop spilling so much ink on the issue.