Linking CSR and PR strategically and ethically through sustainable community engagement

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• Linking CSR and PR strategically and ethically
  through sustainable community engagement
• Elliott Prasse-Freeman
• Education Development Center, Inc (EDC)
• 2 April 2007

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(No Transcript)
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Our Community, Our Work
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• EDCs CSR-related work in Asia
• Community engagement programs with corporate
  donor funds
• Supply chain consulting/research
• Internal management systems consulting

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CSR Realities

• Companies are profit driven, fundamentally and
  primarily. This is not a bad thing or a good
  thing, just a reality.
• Therefore, CSR is, above all else, and both
  directly and indirectly, about profit
  maximization.
• Which essentially translates into risk management
  and public relations, respectively.
• Therefore
• How to balance CSR and PR both strategically and
  ethically?
• How to design and implement community engagement
  programs and/or internal practices which increase
  profit or minimize risk?

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CSR Challenges

• CSR Challenges For Corporations in Asia from an
  NGOs perspective
• Little coherent CSR vision or strategy
• Employee engagement weak and poorly articulated
• Poor incentives for best practices and evaluation

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Little coherent vision or strategy

• One-off events
• without follow up or contextualization
• Not linking CSR with business case
• No long term strategy

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Employee Engagement Poor

• Rationale Behind Employee Engagement
• High turnover rates in companies
• Employees increasingly want to feel their company
  reflects their values
• Ways Engagement can be increased
• Needs to be supported by top management so it is
  not a burden to very busy staff
• Can bring expertise of the staff to bear on the
  project
• Financial management coaching by Investment Bank
  staff, etc

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Poor incentives for M E

• No monitoring can create distortions, dependence
• ex Revolving funds giving capital to loan
  sharks cash giveaways to communities community
  leaders with three new cars
• But getting the money disbursed is often the
  number one priority for many corporations.
• Evaluation/best practices little impetus
  because the PR is often the same without
• Designing potential best practices and taking an
  active role in those projects has potential PR
  effects

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Sustainable Development

• All of these challenges can be mitigated by
• SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

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Sustainable Development

• but first there are barriers
• Corporations want to remain nimble
• Little public pressure for sustainable practices
• Companies forced to respond to disaster
• Solutions Sustainable development can generate
  sustainable PR
• Long term projects can generate salutary effects
  (brand loyalty), spill-over benefits (developing
  consumers), and most importantly stories of
  change.
• Balancing a portfolio of relief, long-term, and
  of course internal CSR can address these
  challenges
• Long term projects can motivate staff, build a
  reputation for a company

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Potential Next Steps

• Leverage knowledge and skills of companies for
  community engagement projects
• NGOs, contrary to popular belief, dont always
  just want money. Want input, contribution,
  ideas, best practices.
• Companies can take an even more active part in
  creating products and services to target poorer
  consumers
• C.K. Prahalad argues in his book Fortune at the
  Bottom of the Pyramid that billions of aspiring
  poor are not now being targeted by MNCs as
  consumers.
• Thinking of ways to quantify benefits of CSR
• Higher productivity/lower turnover with a more
  sophisticated employee engagement program?
• Any bottom-lineeffects of CSR?
• Can the risk mitigation be quantified?

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Conclusion
Many companies here today represent the vanguard
of CSR in Asia
By continuing to push for more engagement, better
dialogue, more efficient practices, sustainable
development, etc you set an example that others
will be forced to follow.