Steps involved developing social responsibility program

Armed with that internal support, you can begin building relationships with external stakeholders such as community leaders and organizations to partner with in your CSR campaign. Again, your ultimate CSR program should flow from your company values, link to the causes your staff and customers care about, while also addressing pressing issues in your community.

One way to do this is to focus in on the challenges cited by community members in your initial research. Figure out where your company is best positioned to have an impact and commit your resources there.

This is where you dig into the discrete details. As much as you can, link your plan to efforts already going on in the community to maximize your impact. Map it out in as much detail as you can at this point, recognizing that as facts on the ground will shift, so will your approach.

Make sure you build in time for reflection as you execute your CSR program. It can be easy to get caught up in the grind of the work itself.

Listen as you go. Check in with the team regularly and with community members, recipients of the CSR project most importantly, so see how the CSR work is landing for them. Lastly, take time to celebrate progress. Give your team shout outs for small victories along the way. More organizations are focused on having a long-term, sustained impact in their communities through CSR work. But given all of the other priorities companies face, this can be challenging.

Moving CSR into your C-suite is one great way to keep it front and center. Keep it data-driven and link the results of your CSR program to your broader company metrics. In other words, make it a priority, just as you would metrics like profitability and operational overhead. Relatedly, budget for CSR just as you would other ongoing company expenses.

At the same time, constantly evaluate your CSR model to better understand how you can achieve greater impact at potentially lower costs to improve efficiency. Having interim points of analysis throughout the campaign will help you execute better during your CSR work while also informing your overall strategic approach.

This is a key learning point. Step 5 is to report. Be open and honest about the extent to which goals are reached. Transparency is crucial. I have studied CSR and sustainability reports that are several hundred pages long and look impressive! Companies that have been criticized for poor behavior are often the ones that write the most about how good they are — in order to convince people outside the company.

Just as corporate responsibility and sustainability should be integrated throughout the company, it should be integrated into the annual report process. A few years ago I found a well-known company that issued two annual reports. One report, on glossy paper, did not mention anything about sustainability and social responsibility.

Another company I studied illustrates the importance of shared values when it comes to CSR and sustainability. The company posted an excellent CSR plan one year, but the next year the plan had disappeared from its report. When I called the company and asked what had happened to the CSR plan, the person I spoke to became quiet. Finally, he answered: The person who formulated the plan had left the company. We have now covered the five-step model.

But are we finished? The pursuit of responsibility and sustainability is a continuous process because challenges and opportunities constantly change. One has to keep going around the circle. The immediate results of structured and well-managed CSR focus are reduced risk and cost. That is well and good. But the most positive effects of well-managed CSR and sustainability are the opportunities.

Well-planned and managed CSR contributes to sustainable innovation. On a planet with limited resources, sustainable innovation and product development are prerequisites for your company to still be around 10 years from now. A video version of the talk was published on YouTube on July 16th Develop a plan, metrics and targets.

Track and reward progress As with any initiative, it is important to develop, implement and monitor a plan to improve member sustainability performance, including targets and metrics for tracking and measuring success. Analyze and engage From the vision process in Step 3 above, the association can back-cast to identify barriers and opportunities for the realization of the vision. Report on sector results Associations can adopt sector-wide metrics to guide member sustainability progress.

Contribute to progressive public policy Industry needs a level playing field to operate effectively. The future beckons Over the coming decades, society will grapple with serious global trends, such as climate change, resource scarcity, ecosystem depletion and a growing social divide. Show comments for this story. View the discussion thread.

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