WEBINAR: Charles Schwab Foundation and social impact agency, Prosono, share a case study using a fresh approach to evolving strategic CSR practices.
Major impact: assembly required
“The dictionary is the only place that success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success. I think you can accomplish anything if you’re willing to pay the price.” –Vince Lombardi
Companies succeed in corporate citizenship when they operate within the purview of their purpose and apply their unique strengths and capabilities to create financial, social, and environmental value. According to our forthcoming State of Corporate Citizenship 2020 research, executives report that they are more successful in achieving key business goals, such as reducing employee turnover and improving customer retention, when they integrate corporate citizenship into core business strategy.
Corporate citizenship professionals are challenged sometimes by a lack of authority to direct the efforts of people across their companies and communities to create sustainable, long-term change. I am continually impressed by what our members manage to accomplish with influence. Even when operating with limited numbers of staff and with limited resources, you leverage your networks to rally senior leadership, employees, customers, and local communities around the issues that matter most. Corporate citizenship professionals are often the connectors who hold together this broad array of stakeholders—and when you are at your most effective, your work helps accelerate business growth and social impact around the world.
You will find plenty of examples of great corporate citizenship in the 30th issue of the Corporate Citizen. Click through and read on to learn how companies are setting and communicating sustainability targets; how they are encouraging employees to build professional skills while volunteering; and how they are networking to enlist the talents of others to maximize their corporate citizenship efforts.
To learn how to amplify your impact even further, I invite you to join us in San Francisco for the 2020 International Corporate Citizenship Conference (March 30-April 1, 2020). More than 600 corporate citizenship professionals will convene to learn and share how they achieve global impact. See why community involvement and environmental sustainability professionals return to this event year after year. Attendees learn best practices, network in a unique corporate-only context, and gain tools to apply immediately to their corporate social responsibility work. Thank you for your continued work and we hope to see you at one of our upcoming events.
Related Content
WEBINAR: This session will cover the step-by-step approach to launching a firmwide CR effort, from getting leadership buy-in, to assessing and anticipating strategic challenges.
RESEARCH BRIEF - Board-level gender diversity contributes to a virtuous cycle of firm performance.
RESEARCH BRIEF - Researchers found that corporate citizenship impacts financial performance positively only after a threshold amount of investment has been made.
RESEARCH BRIEF - Evidence from the banking industry suggests that smaller firms that are locally owned and managed react differently to fluctuations in financial performance than large firms with a more extensive geographic reach.
RESEARCH BRIEF - CSR-based incentives for executives improve corporate citizenship performance for all companies. However, a firm whose governance emphasizes stakeholders over shareholders is more likely to benefit financially from such executive compensation structures.
RESEARCH BRIEF - Firms with top CSR programs receive higher relative market valuations than their industry peers.
REGULATORY RADAR - The state of Washington’s board diversity requirement goes into effect in June 2020 and mandates that all public companies subject to the Washington Business Corporation Act have a gender-diverse board by January 1, 2022 or comply with new board diversity disclosure requirements.