There are multiple types of CSR categories out there for businesses to implement, and it often comes down to preference.

Whether you’re new to CSR or looking to shift your CSR priorities, let’s take a look at how you can create the most effective CSR strategy for your business.

1. What category of CSR are you looking to focus on?

CSR can cover philanthropic, environmental, ethical, and economic responsibility.

Environmental responsibility: behaving in a more environmentally-friendly, sustainable way – e.g., reducing pollution, water consumption and general waste

Ethical responsibility: operating in an ethical fashion with the aim to embrace ethical responsibility across an organisation in terms of fair treatment – e.g., minimum wage or living wage considerations

Philanthropic responsibility: making the world a better place to live in – e.g., donating to charities and nonprofits that align with business values/vision or worthy causes, or even the creation of your own charitable trust (we created PETT to donate IT equipment to charities that need it most as part of our philanthropic efforts)

Economic responsibility: ensuring financial decisions are put towards positively impacting the environment, people, and society at large – e.g., modifying manufacturing processes to include recyclables

Once you pick an area to focus on, you’ll have a better idea on how to integrate it into your business to align with other goals, such as improving employee engagement.

As an example, at Prism, we focus a lot on philanthropic responsibility, such as our support of The New Life Church foodbank in Congleton this year that feeds families throughout winter.

2. Engage staff by choosing a cause

Many employees will likely already have causes that they are passionate about, which is why including them in the process of crafting your CSR strategy is so important.

These might even link to company values, such as diversity, that can be implemented into CSR efforts.

Ask your employees which issues they care about the most, and then narrow down the process by considering how much this aligns with your business and its values.

By asking employees which volunteer opportunities they would participate in, you can see how engaged they would be once the CSR strategy is put into action.

3. Launching your CSR

Once you’ve established the type of CSR strategy you want and the cause it will be supporting, it’s time to launch.

This includes communicating with employees, stakeholders/investors, local communities, press, and customers or supporters of your business.

It’s important to keep your goals in mind, too.

For example, do you have an initiative to donate a certain number of meals to a foodbank in a specified time frame?

This gives you small goals or KPIs to measure and keep track of along the way to see how effective and engaging your CSR mission is, which can inform potential changes in the long-term to adapt.

Once you determine your ‘why’, you’ll be able to start creating the ideal CSR strategy for your business that can act as a true representation of your business’s values and vision.

If you’d like to find out more about our charity work, click here.