During the last few years, corporate responsibility and sustainability have transitioned out of the silos and into the mainstream. Shared-value is the new reality and collaboration between even the biggest competitors is increasingly prevalent. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is becoming systemic and vital for businesses in all industries and sectors. Even small and mid-sized companies are searching for ways to embed social good within their businesses.
For what do we account for such a change?
Increased awareness of companies’ ability to help solve rising global challenges—reduced natural resources, soaring populations, climate change, increased digital divide—has certainly played a role. Similarly, as sustainability metrics become more advanced, companies are increasingly measuring and communicating impact, giving them the ability to review how CSR efforts benefit their community and the bottom-line.
In spite of this, many companies are struggling to figure out how exactly to measure the impact of their CSR programs. Whether it’s focusing too much on process vs. results or forgetting about the power of qualitative results, measuring the success of sustainability efforts is very much a work-in-progress.
The following tips are designed to help companies of all sizes improve the success of their CSR reporting so they can ultimately create more impact. Without further ado:
1. Focus on outcomes. The number of hours served, dollars contributed, and employees engaged are important to understand a company’s level of commitment to a cause. To understand the value of those investments however, it’s essential to examine the outcomes of your CSR projects — how a project changed the lives of community stakeholders, volunteers, and beneficiaries and helped create a better planet. Whatever types of investments you’re making, think about what constitutes a successful outcome of your work and how to measure that outcome. For example, if your employees are volunteering at a homeless shelter, focus on the number of meals served rather than hours donated. If you’re switching to LED lighting, report on how much energy you’re saving rather than the number of lights you’re replacing.
2. Learn from others. One of the best ways to improve your impact measurement is by learning from others. Review the CSR reports of companies like Timberland, UPS, and Intelwho have used measurement to improve the impact of their programs. There are also several publications and events, including Triple Pundit, CSRwire, Guardian Sustainable Business, FastCoExist, and #CSRchat, that focus on promoting knowledge and best-practices between CSR leaders. It’s one of the best ways to refresh your process and see what you may be missing. If you can’t attend major conferences such as BSR’s annual event, Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College, Sustainable Brands, Net Impact of the CECP Summit, review online. Many now offer live streaming of content, which can be extremely helpful.
3. Listen to your stakeholders. Through conversation, small focus groups, or even social media polling, the collection of qualitative survey data, you can learn what’s important to your stakeholders – employees, members of the community, suppliers, customers, nonprofit partners, etc. By taking the time to understand their motivations, goals, and needs, the programs you develop can be crafted to best serve those interests, and generate
the greatest value for all participants. And, you can be smarter about selecting the metrics, data and stories by choosing to report on what your stakeholders value most.
4. Don’t undervalue stories. So often, companies can fall under the trap of thinking impact only gets communicated through numbers—percentages, hours, dollars, increases, decreases, etc. Sometimes impact can’t be quantified—and that’s okay. Stories and qualitative observations are just as important as data when it comes to communicating your impact. The way a worker’s entire life transforms when he is paid a fair wage is incredibly powerful—and it’s something that can best be communicated through his personal story. Your audiences want to hear these types of stories and those who are personally affected want to share.
5. Measure, refine and tweak, measure again. The programs with the most impact on their communities, their participants, and their businesses don’t look at measurement as a one-time endeavor. It’s an integral part of their programs. Find out what works so you can do more of it; find out what doesn’t work, so you can intervene, tweak and improve.
This article was taken from here