Social Enterprise Symposium: Transforming Business for the Global Good
5 – 9 p.m. Thursday, March 25
Frank Auditorium, 1524 Van Munching Hall

Corporate Social Responsibility: How a Company Communicates its Cause

How a Company Communicates its Cause focused on the way businesses develop strategies to engage stakeholders in CSR and how companies communicate their commitment to CSR in an authentic and meaningful way.  The session featured Scott Henderson, Principal of Rally the Cause and Causeshift; Kelly Howard, Firmwide Director of Public Relations at PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLC; Denise Keyes, Executive Director at the Center for Social Impact Communications at Georgetown University and Rita Shankel, Americas Community Engagement Leader at Ernst and Young; and was moderated by Lucille Pilling, a CSR strategist. Lucille explained that behavior change takes time and that both sides need to recognize the need for change.  

Scott Henderson began by explaining that it is important to integrate different pieces of CSR (cause marketing, corporate philanthropy, etc.) into what companies do. In particular, he explained that the tools and web maps are there, so rather than focusing on creating a technology infrastructure, companies need to address what problems can be solved.  Scott also explained that in order to make a real difference, CSR should not be restricted to its own department, instead people should champion CSR by working in different departments that have a real impact on the bottom line. You need to deal with the real issues and reinvent how we structure our approach to corporate responsibility, he said. Specifically, it’s about who you are and what you do. You can champion CSR in different departments that have bottom line impacts. You need to have combination of outcome and output and understand who the players are because each one will have a different perspective on measurements on success.  Scott’s key takeaway was about the importance of getting past jargon in order to offer products that positively impact society. 

Denise Keyes described the trend in communicating CSR as needing to have clarity about practices in addition to transparency. She stated that audiences are looking for tangibility so that they will actually know what companies are doing.  Denise explained that before you could teach CSR communication to educators, you need to teach about CSR.  If you’re going to talk about CSR you actually have to know what you’re talking about and who the experts are.  Denise has found that CSR communicators serve as an integrator, playing the powerful role of bringing together different roles in the organization. Identifying stakeholders requires creativity. It’s important to know what matters to different audiences and to understand who the influencers are, who the partners are and who the opposition is.  Finally it is critical to understand what consumers want and the role that employees will play in that process.  Denise emphasized that the same good principles of communication apply in communicating CSR. She stressed the importance of incorporating CSR into the company’s strategy in order to create a deeper level of engagement, and stressed the importance of measurement.  Rules on measurement are changing and opportunities are much more creative. Companies have to identify measurement standards up front and then be accountable.

Kelly Howard stated that CSR needs to be a part of the business strategy in order to be sustainable. A company’s actions need to allow them to continue to make a profit and a return on the business.  CSR actions should be embedded in business strategy which is both good for the cause and good for shareholders. Kelly described how PwC is talking with investors and stakeholders, not just about financial reporting but also about environmental risks. He believes that we will see a shift in the expectations of how companies need to report and that reporting will not just relate to investors but also to a broader segment of stakeholders, anyone that is impacted by company in any way. Kelly emphasized the need to engage with these groups in a meaningful way about what companies are doing with the environment, employees and to provide the information in clear forum.  Furthermore, Kelly stressed the need to build, engage and deepen relationships in order to gain scale.  While PwC is in the business of measurement, Kelly suggested that measurement should be secondary to trying to make change happen. Kelly’s final thought was to think less about communicating and more about engaging audiences to look at what companies are doing and how are they are collaborating to enact change.

Rita Shankel explained that companies need to be more creative about how to engage stakeholders in order to get messages across. She explained that at Ernst & Young, CSR is part of their strategy for attracting and retaining talent and keeping employees engaged.  Social problems are everyone’s problems, she said.  Recruiting strategies are changing because of a broader understanding of the influence that social problems have on companies. As such, corporate responsibility has had a big impact on recruitment. Ernst and Young is investing in programs that help with recruiting by investing in education.  Employees also view corporate responsibility as a key element for retention.  The benefit of being in CR is that you can identify quantitative measurements such as how many members of the staff volunteer.  Senior staff have been moved to hear the testimonials of top performers talking about how their lives and careers were changed by volunteer experiences that synch up with the vision of the firm. Finally, it is critical to identify the right goals and to create programs that meet those needs.  (Sarina Gerson, MBA '11)