What is CSR?

CSR, ESG, ROI, COO, CFO, CEO, OOO, R&D, COP, EOD, EOW, ETA, NSFW...👀 

Let’s face it, “business chat” acronyms are RIFE and often are OTT... see what we did there?

While these terms are handy, they can leave you feeling lost if they sound like a foreign language. We’ve all been there: everyone's chatting about something, and you're sitting nodding, secretly thinking, "Wait, what on earth are they talking about?" If you've ever been stuck in a moment like this when CSR pops up, fear not - we've got your back!

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is essentially everything a business does to help their staff or their community. As a concept, it encourages companies to be socially accountable by operating in a way that benefits society as a whole, putting people above profits and ultimately ensuring companies are acting ethically. 

Embracing CSR can have a positive impact on your business

Firstly, it can enhance your company's reputation and brand image, making it more attractive to customers who value ethical practices. Additionally, engaging in CSR activities can help build stronger relationships with stakeholders, including employees, investors and the community. 

By demonstrating a commitment to social and environmental issues, your business can also differentiate itself from competitors and attract top talent who share your values. Overall, integrating CSR into your business strategy can lead to long-term sustainability and success.

CSR variants 

Generally speaking, there are four main areas of CSR.  

Environmental responsibility is the belief that organisations should behave in the most environmentally friendly way possible. It ensures businesses are held accountable for their impact on the environment and that they adopt eco-friendly practices by reducing harmful practices, regulating energy consumption, and offsetting negative environmental impact.

Ethical responsibility is the belief that an organisation should operate in a fair and ethical manner. This means fair treatment of all stakeholders, including leadership, investors, employees, suppliers, and customers etc. For example, a business might set its own higher minimum wage, might require that products, ingredients, materials are sourced according to free trade standards, or they might regulate out-sourcing labour or third-party suppliers’ working practices. 

Philanthropic responsibility involves a business's efforts to improve society and the world. This includes ethical and environmentally-friendly practices, as well as donating a portion of earnings. Some organisations donate to charities and non-profits aligned with their mission, while others create their own charitable trusts or organisations. The goal is to make a positive impact on society.

Economic responsibility involves a company aligning all its financial choices with its dedication to ethical practices. The objective goes beyond profit growth to ensure that business activities have a positive impact on the environment, individuals, and society.

Self-Regulating 

CSR is a self-regulating business model. It means businesses are operating in a way that enhances (or doesn’t harm) society, communities where they operate and the environment. The concept ensures a balance of economic and social responsibility.

Companies that implement CSR initiatives often engage in activities such as reducing their carbon footprint, improving labour policies, charitable giving, volunteering in the community, fair trade practices, and many more. By integrating CSR into their business strategy, they not only contribute to societal goals but often see benefits such as enhanced brand reputation, increased customer loyalty, and even financial performance improvements.

Evolution 

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has evolved from an optional choice for individual companies to becoming a mandatory regulation at regional, national, and international levels. Despite this shift, many companies go beyond legal requirements by incorporating the idea of "doing good" into their business models. There isn't a single approach to embracing CSR, but it is crucial for a company to genuinely integrate these practices into its culture and operations. In the current socially aware climate, both employees and customers value working for and supporting businesses that actively engage in CSR, as they can easily spot corporate insincerity.

For authentic CSR practices, a company should assess its values, business mission, and core issues to identify initiatives that align best with its goals and culture. This evaluation can be done in-house or by engaging a third party for an assessment.

CSR encourages businesses to adopt a long-term perspective in decision-making, considering the impacts on future generations. This holistic approach not only aligns with the growing consumer demand for ethical and sustainable practices but also fosters an environment where businesses can thrive while making a positive difference in the world. As more companies become aware of the importance of CSR, it becomes a crucial component in building a more equitable, sustainable, and prosperous future for all.

If you want to create, develop or sustain CSR programmes for your business, get in touch with us at hello@neighbourgood.net. 

Volunteering. Volunteering. Volunteering.

Following the announcement of the Conservatives’ plans to create a new National Service, volunteering has well and truly been bubbling up the national news agenda.

While mandatory community service may not be the best way to compel people to support their community, volunteering is a brilliant way of getting involved and making a positive impact.

When individuals choose to volunteer, they often find a sense of purpose and fulfilment that comes from helping others. It can also be a fantastic opportunity to meet new people, build meaningful relationships, and develop new skills.

And at Neighbourgood, we practice what we preach.

Our director Alex has been volunteering with a local arts festival for the last three years.

She fills us in on all the drama...and dance....and music...and speech...and folk dance.

Over to you, Alex.

A big passion of mine has always been the arts. In fact, I often perpetuate a fake Winston Churchill quote..."When Winston Churchill was asked to cut arts funding in favour of the war effort, he simply replied, ‘then what are we fighting for?’ ".

That passion began from the age of three, when I started with The Donna Whitten Dancers in Portadown, competing in festivals across Northern Ireland and a few in England.

I continued dancing and performing at my university in Liverpool and loved getting involved with anything to do with performing. However, when you begin a career in PR, there are (surprisingly) a lot fewer opportunities to dance - even though I tried to give tap lessons in the office one afternoon...

When I began working in an office, I desperately sought any chance to reconnect with the arts to feed that passion. So, when my mother invited me to assist her on the Portadown Dance Festival committee, I jumped at the opportunity.

In my childhood dancing years, I took part in the Portadown Dance Festival every spring, creating cherished memories, and I’ve been delighted to help be a part of the team that delivers the festival for a new generation of dancers.

My main jobs are organising volunteers to staff the box office and find and manage ticket stewards at the entrances. I also organise people who help backstage, announcing the competitors and introducing their dances.

In this year’s festival, hundreds of children from across Northern Ireland and five different dance schools took part. The whole experience was such a boost to me personally to once again be part of something that I feel so passionately about.

I’m grateful to be a small part of the festival. I am also grateful to The Clearbox Group for creating an environment were giving back to the communities where our employees live is important.

The Clearbox Group’s benefits are shaped to help communities – with unlimited holidays being the main driver to help us all take part in volunteering.

The passion we all have for supporting our communities was the driving force behind the launch of Neighbourgood and I’m excited to take that passion to many brands and businesses across the UK and Ireland to help create more connected communities.

If you want to learn more about how to create impactful volunteering programmes for your employees, get in touch at hello@neighbourgood.net

Introducing Neighbourgood…

An introduction to Neighbourgood

Last month, we launched our new CSR consultancy, Neighbourgood. We’ve had a lot of interest in our new venture, which is exciting, so we wanted to explain what Neighbourgood is, what it does and how it fits into the wider Clearbox Group picture.

What is Neighbourgood?

Neighbourgood is a consultancy that specialises in corporate social responsibility (CSR). CSR is how companies and organisations create a positive impact on the communities where they operate, or where their staff live and work.

There are many ways an organisation can create this positive impact, but the two most common ways are providing donations to community organisations (either financial or product) or mobilising their workforce to volunteer with community organisations.

Why would a company get involved in CSR?

Many organisations today care about the impact they have on their community. CSR is a way to ensure that impact is positive, while also creating employee engagement opportunities for staff to come together and volunteer to help a community cause.

What types of companies do this activity?

In our many years of experience, we’ve helped companies of all shapes and sizes create impactful CSR campaigns.

Whether it’s a small, local business donating IT equipment to a school around the corner or a global brand engaging thousands of employees across the UK and Ireland to get out into the community and create a positive impact, the possibilities with CSR programmes are endless and apply to businesses of all sizes.

The most important thing is that there’s a genuine desire to support the community or good causes – the size of the company isn’t important.

So, what does Neighbourgood do then?

Neighbourgood creates CSR programmes from start to finish. Our team works with companies and brands to:

• Come up with creative ways organisations can support their community.

• Develop ideas into strategic initiatives.

• Identify charities and community organisations that align with our clients.

• Vet the charities and community organisations to ensure there’s a strategic fit for everyone.

• Produce vetting reports on each community organisation using authenticated data from the Charity Commission.

• Contact the community organisations to offer support and manage the set-up process.

• Liaise with charity partners to ensure the smooth running of all projects.

• Process product or financial donations to the community organisations.

• Mobilise and organise teams of employee volunteers to get involved with community organisations.

• Book and brief photographers to attend donation events or volunteering activity for internal and external communications.

• Track all community activity, producing bespoke reports on impact, employee engagement, volunteering hours and more.

• Track sentiment from charity partners on how projects are executed. 

Have you got an example of a project Neighbourgood could bring to life?

Let’s take the example of a bank with hundreds of branches across the UK.

The bank would like to support children from underprivileged backgrounds. The bank also wants to engage employees from its branches that geographically match a national charity’s locations.

That’s where we come in.

Neighbourgood will:

• Propose creative ideas so the bank can meet its objectives, such as: a team kitting event held at the bank’s branches, where employees pack maths kits for the beginning of a new school term.

• Develop a clear project plan.

• Create a database of staff in each branch that will oversee the activity locally.

• Vet the charity that’s been nominated for support and produce a report on how well it fits the aims of the programme.

• Contact the charity to inform them this support is being offered.

• Manage the relationship with the charity.

• Create an employee engagement programme that includes dates for the packing events.

• Source the products for the packing, including the boxes, and have them sent to all local branches.

• Manage the packing events, ensuring they happen on time.

• Book and brief photographers to attend selected events. Charity representatives will also be invited to selected events.

• Creating a briefing pack for the branch leader which includes a walk-through of what to expect on packing day.

• Arrange for the collection of the boxes once the packing is complete.

• Arrange for the delivery of the boxes to each charity branch.

• Produce a report on the activity that details things like number of products donated, number of boxes packed, value of the boxes, number of employees engaged, volunteering hours donated and more.

• Liaise with the bank’s PR and internal communications teams from the start of the campaign to the end, equipping them with stats and information for employee communications, social media content and press materials.

Our job is simply to make the process of engaging with communities as easy but impactful as possible for the companies we work with.

Why are you doing this?

We’ve worked on thousands of CSR campaigns that have impacted millions of people in the UK and Ireland. We’ve seen first-hand the amazing impact that companies can have on their people and the community and we’re passionate about helping the brands we work with to have that lasting impact.

We genuinely believe that even the smallest community engagement campaign can make a huge difference and we want to help more and more businesses to use their powers as a force for good.

And, as we say on our website – you can’t choose your neighbours, but you can choose who you are as a neighbour.

How do I find out more information?

Contact alex@neighbourgood.net or follow us on Instagram