Does your CSR stack up?

Having a corporate consciousness with genuine integrity is becoming increasingly important.

Customers and employees alike want to see much more evidence than a bit of box ticking – and much has been written about the scrutiny, from millennials in particular, when it comes to assessing corporate credentials. Grin and grip photographs or a lunchtime spent painting a fence certainly won’t cut the mustard. CSR, corporate social responsibility, is exactly that – a responsibility.

Ethical sourcing, sustainability, lowering carbon footprints etc are all key, of course, but supporting community initiatives is an area that I feel can deliver results in a whole manner of ways.

My new agency One Black Bear has been doing great things for St Basil’s for a number of years. So along with my CIPR Midlands’ colleague Rachel Owen, we are now hoping to promote best practice for community activities with a big focus on St Basil’s.

Our first initiative is going to be a CSR event for Birmingham businesses which will endeavour to ask businesses – and PR practitioners especially – how their CSR stacks up. And indeed, what sort of city do we want to live and/or work in?

St Basil’s fundraising is headed by the charismatic Barrie Hodge. Of course encouraging significant financial donations is part of his role, but Barrie is also on a mission to educate businesses about how else they can help homeless people in Birmingham. For example, getting homeless people into work is a critical part of regaining control of their lives. Businesses can obviously make a meaningful contribution here in a whole host of ways. Work experience. Mentoring. Apprenticeships. Much more useful than a lunchtime painting a fence that in reality might have not really needed painting because some other company had done it not so long ago in a bid to team build whilst ‘doing good’.

We are planning an event on the evening of Thursday, 27^th April (venue TBC but it will be central Birmingham) when Barrie will be speaking alongside other people who feel passionately about helping to make the city a better place, in a way that will genuinely pass the CSR litmus test – and engage customers and employees along the way. Win win win is the plan.

For more information, please email me at bron.eames@oneblack.com