Social Impact Leader Blogs About Corporate Socialanthropy

By Dawn Wilcox, APR, GM & Social Impact Team Leader
Allison & Partners

  Words. They carry so much power and yet can cause so much confusion. For many years we heard the phrase “Corporate Social Responsibility” (CSR) and while there exists several variations on the definition, most folks agree that it is generally defined as stated below by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development: “Corporate Social Responsibility is the continuing commitment by business to contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the community and society at large.” Generally CSR incorporates the business, ethnical and environmental practices of the company and is focused on the business’ impact on the environment, their consumers, employees, stakeholders and members of the community at large.    Cause marketing also has existed for many years and often we heard consumers and even business leaders confuse CSR and cause marketing and because of that we decided to create a new phrase to help better define corporation’s role in positively impacting society while also contributing to the sales and growth of their company.    Two years ago Scott Pansky and I announced a new way of thinking that we believed would help corporations better integrate their new and existing programs. We created a new word -“Corporate Socialanthropy”- along with the following definition: “a strategic platform on which corporations implement internal and external programs including corporate foundation giving, philanthropy, employee volunteerism, cause marketing, and nonprofit partnerships – designed for reputation management and brand loyalty in order to have a positive impact on individuals, the community and world.” We believe that if corporations analyze their various ongoing initiatives, interview people throughout the company, and engage their employees, customers and partners in an authentic way that they can create Corporate Socialanthropy programs that will have a very real long-term impact.    A few weeks ago Allison & Partners released the results of a survey that focused on the challenges many executives face in designing, implementing and measuring cause campaigns. Roadblocks to success included lack of internal alignment, lack of internal consensus on what defines success and the cause and/or charity not being the right fit for the brand/company. On August 3^rd executives from charities, corporations and government agencies will come together in Los Angeles to discuss how best to maximize corporate and nonprofit relationships and our desire is that each attendee will come away believing in the power of activating a strategic “Corporate Socialanthropy” platform. After all, “words” can only take us so far.   For more information, please go to www.allisonpr.com We hope to see you on August 3^rd!   ALLI15526