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Disrupting Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

logoCorporate social responsibility (CSR) means financial donations by for-profit businesses, as well as in-kind donations, employee volunteering or taking on community roles as a representative of a company, such as serving on an advisory board at a nonprofit or government group. CSR also includes commitments and demonstrated action regarding responsible or sustainable environmental practices, pay equality, safe working environments, etc., beyond what is required by law.

Nonprofits, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), charities, schools and other mission-based organizations have wanted to say some things quite frankly to corporations and foundations, but they have been afraid to, for fear of losing their funding.

These organizations are tired of being mocked by the corporate world for not being innovative while also being denied overhead funding necessary to be able to experiment and explore innovation. They are tired of hackathons developing apps that their clients will never use because stakeholders were never consulted. They are tired of being expected to attend roundtable discussions and conferences to talk about serious social issues but not having their time paid for regarding these consultations to give corporations and foundations “insight.” They are tired of having  “executives on loan” from a high-tech company for six months who are more burdens than help.

I’ve even had public school teachers tell me how much they want to tell the big high tech company in their city “no” to its offer to “help” because the company’s ideas are more about good photo opps for the company than actually supporting learning goals – in fact, the company’s ideas take away from essential classroom learning time.

These folks feel they can’t make their complaints known about the attitudes of the for-profit world, so they tell me, in low voices over coffee. They are stressed out – they want a good relationship with the for-profit world, they want volunteers from corporations, but they want to be listened to, they want partnerships to be equal, and they want t

As an independent consultant, I have more freedom to speak than these colleagues. There are things I’ve always wanted to say to the for-profit world about how they approach financial donations, in-kind donations, employee volunteering and other corporate social responsibility (CSR). So I decided it was time to finally say them: I’ve launched a new section on my web site that targets corporations, whether large or small, regarding Corporate Social Responsibility.

My advice is meant to be provocative. It’s meant to be disruptive. Because I believe that CSR is long overdue for some serious disruption.

In my opinion, most CSR-related resources are more concerned with feel-good publicity and have an attitude that mission-based organizations are run by amateurs who chose their professions because they couldn’t make it in the “real” world. There’s a disturbing belief that businesses know better than nonprofits and should, therefore, use their financial gifts to push nonprofits, even public schools, into the directions businesses feel are best.

A lot of people, including several high-profit politicians and the US Supreme Court, believe corporations are “people.” Okay, if that’s the case, then every business, whether a tech-savvy startup, a small storefront or a large corporation, is a citizen of a community: that company’s employees and customers live and work somewhere, and how the employees do their work, how they travel to and for work, and how that work is produced or services are provided impacts neighborhoods, people, cultures and the environment, positively and negatively. No business, no corporation, not even a consultant working at home, is an island that has no impact on other places or people, near or far.

That impact comes with responsibilities, costs and consequences – financial costs, environmental costs and cultural impacts. Maybe farmland becomes industrial lands and housing, small towns become bedroom communities, the land where a popular bowling alley stands becomes so valuable that the prosperous business owners sell and retire – and the community loses a beloved gathering place.

Many of the financial costs that communities, neighborhoods and individuals have to shoulder that result from corporate/business prosperity are not covered by taxes – especially in this day and age of massive tax breaks for corporations and other for-profit companies. Many people are struggling to address those additional costs without any additional funding, while corporations and other businesses experience record profits and larger-than-ever tax breaks.

It’s from that reality that my web pages of advice regarding corporate social responsibility (CSR) have been developed. Expect to be challenged, because my advice is quite different from most, and maybe all, of the other advice you may have been reading or hearing.

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