If you were to ask your employees why they’re proud of working at your company, their top answers probably wouldn’t have anything to do with your ability to make a profit. Instead, they’re much more likely to highlight your company’s mission, culture, values, or social impact. In other words, they’re assessing the level of your corporate citizenship—or how your company approaches its role in society as a whole.
By focusing on corporate citizenship, you demonstrate that your company wants to operate and use its success to make the world a better place. Doing so will enhance your reputation, improve employee engagement, and secure lasting customer loyalty.
The journey to strong corporate citizenship begins with understanding exactly what it encompasses and how your company can build an actionable strategy around it. Learn from these frequently asked questions to guide your path forward.
What Is Corporate Citizenship?
Put simply, corporate citizenship refers to a company’s social responsibility toward its local and global communities. It represents your commitment to ethical business practices, environmental sustainability, and the public welfare.
Often, you’ll hear people mention a few common concepts when discussing corporate citizenship, such as:
- Corporate social responsibility (CSR). While corporate citizenship focuses on how a company positions itself as an upstanding member of society, CSR more specifically refers to the company’s obligations to behave ethically and responsibly. CSR holds companies accountable for taking steps to improve society rather than harm it, such as by using sustainable materials in their products.
- Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG). Businesses and investors use ESG as a set of criteria that measures how well a company performs in sustainability, community well-being, and internal governance. Mandatory and voluntary frameworks, such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards, exist to help your company report on its ESG results consistently.
- Corporate philanthropy. Essentially, corporate philanthropy is only one aspect of corporate citizenship, but it’s a popular topic among today’s companies. Many philanthropic companies launch workplace giving programs, such as matching gifts and volunteer grants, to help their employees support the causes they care about.
Learning the key distinctions between these terms allows your company to craft a corporate citizenship strategy that reflects your specific goals, priorities, and desired impact.
Why Is Corporate Citizenship Important?
Incorporating corporate citizenship into your company’s culture, policies, and operations requires careful planning and implementation. However, these statistics highlighted by Double the Donation illustrate why doing so is well worth the effort:
- 93% of employees believe companies should lead with purpose.
- 55% of employees say they would take a lower salary to work for a socially responsible company.
- 58% of companies say workplace giving programs are important in retaining employees.
- 77% of consumers want to purchase from companies with CSR initiatives.
- 73% of investors look to invest in companies that improve the environment and society as a whole.
Through corporate citizenship, your company can set itself apart from its competitors in the eyes of employees, consumers, and investors alike. As your impact grows, so will your company’s success.
What Are Examples of Corporate Citizenship?
Since corporate citizenship is such a broad concept, it can be challenging to envision what it might look like to put a corporate citizenship strategy into action. For many companies, corporate citizenship might involve:
- Implementing a zero-waste office policy through reuse, recycling, and composting.
- Incentivizing employees to carpool, bike, or take public transportation to work.
- Installing water-saving and energy-efficient appliances in buildings.
- Matching employee donations to charitable causes.
- Hosting company volunteering days to help employees to give back to the community.
- Launching diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives such as providing employee resource groups.
- Creating scholarship programs to invest in the next generation of talent.
Your company doesn’t need to launch all of these initiatives at once. Start small, using your overall goals and what you know about your employees to guide you. For example, if you know that many of your team members belong to Generation Y or Z, you could focus on the top workplace priorities of these generations, such as social wellness and DEI.
How Do You Develop Corporate Citizenship?
Investopedia outlines five stages of corporate citizenship that go from elementary to transformative. Starting out, many companies engage in basic corporate citizenship activities, such as implementing a recycling program, with very little executive involvement. Many mission-driven small businesses remain at this stage due to limited time or resources, but there are plenty of opportunities to expand over time.
If your company is ready to create its own approach to corporate citizenship, start with these basic steps:
- Consider your priorities and current activities. Based on your company’s purpose and values, identify the most relevant social, environmental, and ethical issues that you can address. Consider whether you’re already engaging in any corporate citizenship activities that you can build upon.
- Collect feedback and secure buy-in. Gather input from employees, customers, and other community members to nurture support for your corporate citizenship strategy. Learn about their expectations and preferences to zero in on initiatives and areas of focus that will resonate with them most.
- Invest in technology to streamline your efforts. Explore tools that facilitate managing your corporate citizenship activities. For example, Uncommon Giving’s CSR software guide recommends looking for features such as employee giving, volunteering, event management, and reporting to consolidate your programs on one platform.
- Promote participation opportunities to employees. When you launch a new initiative, whether it’s a carpool incentive or a matching gift program, announce it in your company-wide meetings, website, and email newsletter. Post social media teasers and updates to generate excitement and share progress toward your goals.
Use relevant metrics such as employee participation, donation amounts, and carbon emissions to evaluate your performance over time. Remember to celebrate your successes with employees and your community and thank participants to maintain momentum along your corporate citizenship journey.
64% of companies surveyed by The Conference Board report on corporate citizenship to enhance their reputation with employees. Whether your company shares its impact in a dedicated report, on its website, or through other means, use storytelling to make your results more concrete. Convey your company’s experience with corporate citizenship alongside the communities and nonprofit partners you’ve impacted to add credibility, transparency, and vitality to your reporting.
