Designing Authentic, Credible, and Effective Corporate Social Programs

While a sense of responsibility is important to an increasingly socially aware workforce and the stakeholders and communities impacted by corporations, a case can be made for doing good that does not rely solely on a responsibility argument. In fact, companies can do good in the world while doing well for themselves through creativity and strategic planning.

Corporate sustainability or social responsibility programs have benefits beyond being a responsible member of the global community. In addition to delivering a reputational boost, carefully designed actions can strengthen the long-term viability of the corporate value chain, increase employee engagement, and improve relationships with special interest groups.

Ipsos has 20 years of experience helping companies to shape their social responsibility and sustainability programs. This experience has demonstrated that effective engagement requires addressing the authenticity, credibility, and effectiveness of programs from both an internal and external perspective.

Authenticity

Corporate sustainability or social responsibility programs that are authentic begin with the internal alignment of stakeholder objectives. This typically means the marketing and communications portions of the business, but may include human resources, investor relations, and government relations functions as well.

Programs that are in synergy with the company’s values and actions are more likely to strike stakeholders as authentic because they are clearly and demonstrably integrated throughout the business.

Beyond internal alignment, the perceptions of external stakeholders must also be taken into account. For external stakeholders, perception is reality, and a program that is striving to be perceived as authentic must align with these perceptions. In determining current perceptions, taking stock of a company’s image, its strengths and weaknesses is particularly important. Programs should align with perceived strengths while addressing perceived weaknesses.

Credibility

Even companies that are generally well-regarded may not be perceived as being credible within a particular area of social responsibility or sustainability. Ensuring that the program is authentic helps to build credibility, but there are also other actions companies can take.

Co-creation is an effective way to build credibility from the outset. Co-creation, working closely with a third party, can involve interest groups and/or partners that will help to execute an initiative. Using co-creators enables a company to borrow equity from the collaborator. Borrowing equity is particularly important when a company is attempting to turn-around a poor reputation with stakeholders, or push into areas that may not be perceived as particular strengths for the company.

For the partnership to work, however, there needs to be a clear natural synergy between the company and partner. In other words, it needs to ‘make sense’. Credible initiatives must also align with external realities – the myriad of external issues and topics that could have an impact on a company’s ability to operate.

Aligning to the issue environment can help to highlight opportunities for a company to stand above its peer organizations. For instance, the main issue currently facing the financial industry as a whole is data security. A financial institution that took a proactive approach to engaging with this issue responsibly could strengthen its own long-term viability at the same time as enhancing perceptions of it as a socially responsible company.

Effectiveness

Programs must be effective in driving stakeholder perceptions (awareness and trust) which in turn impact stakeholder actions. Well-designed initiatives:

• Impact consumer behavior by enhancing trust and loyalty.
• Give employees something to be proud of, thus increasing employee engagement and attracting the best talent.
• Generate goodwill among special interest groups making them more likely to join you at the table for constructive debate.

Programs must also have an impact on the target issue, and companies need to measure the impact of their social programs through program evaluation using methods developed in social research.

Program evaluations are focused on the impact of the program in meeting its expressed goals. For instance, a program that aims to encourage the economic empowerment of women could be assessed based on measures of personal and household income, confidence, and role in financial decision-making for women in the target community over time.

A thorough assessment of program implementation, or “process evaluation”, can help program managers to explain the impacts they are seeing, and whether value for money has been achieved.

Program evaluations, when shared with partners and stakeholders, can be very powerful in helping to make the program itself more effective while also increasing perceptions of authenticity and credibility among external stakeholders (thus creating a virtuous cycle).

In summary, companies have an unparalleled opportunity to do good in the world. Doing good can help companies do well, but only if the programs are designed so that they are authentic, credible, and effective.