Inspiration comes in many forms. Inspiration this week comes from the corporate sector and a trend report gathered from a survey of corporate social responsibility professionals by a professional membership organization, Association of Corporate Contributions Professionals (ACCP).
Key Take Aways
- Corporations are using charitable involvement to support business initiatives
- Organizations are strategic about what causes areas they support
- Companies support a wide variety of charitable causes
ACCP is open to for-profit companies or corporate funded foundations that have corporate responsibility programs and aims to develop leaders who leverage integrated philanthropy in support of business goals while creating positive societal impact. The findings in its 2014 Trend Report, a survey of 84 companies with an average of 58,000 employees and billions of dollars in revenue, shed insight on how corporations are getting involved, which cause areas they are supporting and how they are using their efforts to influence the bottom line. The insights are widely applicable, including to the NCAA and its member institutions.
You can read the report in its entirety here, but here is a run down of the most applicable findings:
- Corporations are using charitable involvement to support business initiatives
From brand awareness to employee satisfaction, corporations are utilizing charitable involvement to achieve their business aims. Most corporations surveyed included civic contributions in their company vision, mission and goals (79 percent) and more than half considered it as part of their company image (64 percent).
“Companies are seeking greater returns on limited charitable assets, requiring increased performance and expectations. One of the driving forces behind this trend is the desire to align philanthropy to help tackle business problems. A second force is the increased emphasis on greater stakeholder engagement, such as employee engagement.” — Mark Shanley, President & CEO, ACCP
Organizations are strategic about what causes areas they support
Selecting a cause area(s) to support should be given as much consideration as any business decision. In order for outreach efforts to be effective in influencing the bottom line they must align with the brand and and feel authentic to the organization and its mission. The graphic below depicts seven elements to consider when selecting engagement opportunities:
3. Companies support a wide variety of charitable causes
The charitable causes the companies surveyed support are as varied as the fourteen industries represented in the survey. These statistics are particularly useful because they highlight areas of need and potential areas for collaboration. If 87 percent of corporations support Education, it is relatively safe to assume that one of your donors or sponsors is involved in this area and could have interest in partnering or supporting your effort. Inversely, only 37 percent of corporations are devoting their efforts to workforce development. Workforce development is an integral component of the NCAA Life Skills model. Why not provide an opportunity for a student-athlete to share the skills they are obtaining with community members who need assistance in this area?
The 2014 Trends Report makes clear that community outreach can be utilized to impact key business initiatives if a little strategy and creativity is employed when determining how to get involved. Be it the corporate sector or the NCAA, we all share objectives and common goals as professionals focused on community engagement.
View the full report here or visit the ACCP website for more information:http://www.accprof.org/about-us/