Improving corporate social responsibility through crowdfunding Companies across America are partnering with community organizations and crowdfunding platforms to leverage their social reach and extend their (corporate social responsibility) CSR messaging.
It is becoming an accepted form of CSR activity, with very little downside and incredible potential.
(1) Let your employees have many voices and causes. Rather than using a committee or advisory group and carefully choosing a couple of causes, equip your employees with some basis knowledge of crowdfunding and let them raise funds for the causes they care about in their local community.
(2) Find multiple partners. Through well-executed crowdfunding campaigns, companies can start communicating with and form partnerships with a number of other companies or community organizations. Since the outreach happens through social channels driven by customers and community members, the other organizations are much more likely to want to help you.
3) Extend your media reach. The media tracks and reports on novel and interesting crowdfunding campaigns – firms can take a local project and garner regional or national press through a creative crowdfunding campaign
(4) Add gamification and competition. Run an innovation challenge, offer to match the donations made by other community groups that work to solve a problem identified by you. By adding competition and rewards, you can have multiple small community groups competing to be the most effective at solving issues in your CSR wheelhouse – and the social reach is magnified.
(5) Align physical brand with causes and give–aways. Create unique products or give-aways that are only available in store if you are a retail firm, or in the location of one of your community partners if you are not. Create an experience, a party, rally or some other event, but make participation contingent on a certain level of donation through crowdfunding. Smart brands figure out how to drive social engagement into stores.
(6) Use your voice in a way customers will want to hear. Too many companies only talk about themselves. Leverage your social reach by backing and supporting the crowdfunding campaigns of groups your support. Many times your social voice is worth more than your donation.
(7) Use video. Effective crowdfunding requires the use of engaging and creative video – allow your employees to take part (borrowing from Delta Airlines highly successful inflight safety videos) – by using Video based and creative campaigns, the campaign can live on in YouTube or other sites long after the crowdfunding campaign has ended.
In summary, Crowdfunding is about aligning and activating a community – by leveraging the deep social engagement of the crowd, companies can both extend their CSR reach and impact. Don’t forget to have fun while doing it – crowdfunders are young, savvy and jaded by corporate messaging!