Meaningful CSR is not based on patronage or mentorship, it is based on partnership. Partnership with communities, and partnership with the organisations that support and represent them. And, fortunately, we are seeing more and more of these partnerships.
Ireland’s community, voluntary and charity sector is a wellspring of knowledge and expertise. Around 184,000 people are employed in the sector and it generates a combined annual turnover of €14.5bn. These organisations are embedded in communities, and they have decades of experience in addressing some of the most complex issues we face as a society.
To maximise their positive impact on society, companies must develop partnerships with community and voluntary organisations focused on sustained impact over time. These holistic strategies should be informed, not only by a company’s values, but also the evolving needs of communities. Many local and international companies have stepped up as good corporate citizens by working closely with civil society organisations to ensure that their contributions have a positive impact where it is most needed.
In the long-term, these strategies will create shared value for both companies and society, but in the current circumstances, social need must be prioritised, and companies should be content to give more than they get. In future, these impact-focused CSR programmes will stand in stark contrast to those that are focused solely on creating value for brands and their shareholders.
Corporate Social Responsibility Partnerships
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) partnerships between businesses and not-for-profit organisations like RoSPA, are often considered to be one of the most effective ways of creating positive social change. Delivering a positive impact for people by creating a programme of activity that creates a safe environment and a workforce fit for the future is a hugely valuable goal and has benefits for your customers, employees, consumers and partners alike:
Customers
B2B customers want responsible and values driven suppliers
Employees
Prefer to work at an organisation that is purpose and values led
Consumers
Want to purchase from organisations with clearly articulated values
Partners
Want to work with an organisation that has a clear and compelling story aligned to their values
Reasons to build partnerships with social purpose
Accidents can change lives. Thousands of people were seriously injured or killed in accidents at home, on the road or at work – many of them preventable.
CSR strategies can be achieved for SMEs by creating CSR activities that are designed to raise awareness, educate, and empower those most at risk of accidents to live safer, active lives. CSR programmes benefit society while boosting your brand and improving your bottom line. There are many potential benefits to your organisation creating a CSR partnership with RoSPA, these include:
A CSR partnership can help your organisation enact positive social change. If you want to make a difference to society through a programme of CSR activity, there are other benefits too:
Your organisation
Having a reputation as a responsible company can lead to competitive advantage
Employees
Being a responsible business makes it easier to recruit and retain employees
Local community
Benefiting from your activities, your local community will be more supportive
Having a strong CSR programme, may mean that you also find it easier to:
Gain positive media coverage
Attract new investors
Develop new products or services
How A CSR Partnership can Deliver CSR goals
The aim of our CSR partnerships is to build a strategy around your CSR goals based on your core competencies, and our areas of expertise which include:
Take a simple three step approach:
Step 1 - Discovery
Explore and understand your CSR goals
Step 2 - Assessment
Identify opportunities and prioritise options
Step 3 - Specific Support
Develop a programme of activity to
achieve your goals
Aligning objectives and setting goals is vital, as is ongoing evaluation of your CSR project to ensure both parties are meeting these goals. Learning from any challenges along the way leads to a better understanding of what makes your partnership successful and how we can create the most sustainable change.
An Example of a CSR Partnership
In 2019, a long-term strategic partnership developed in support of RSA’s CSR strategy ‘Confident Futures’, which focuses on ‘Shaping a smarter tomorrow’. Through this partnership, we’ve supported RSA activities which help people and businesses to get ahead of risks through education, awareness-raising and encouraging behaviour change. It’s about helping people better understand the risks they face so that they can adjust their behaviour to mitigate them.
