3 Tips for Introducing Corporate Social Responsibility to a Small Business

Studies continue to show that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies are not only the right thing to do as a corporate citizen, but they often positively impact the financial performance of the company and give the company a competitive advantage, among other benefits.

CSR strategies, when done right, are typically multi-faceted and combine volunteering/mentoring, sustainability, environmental and philanthropic initiatives. Although this level of program isn't feasible for our company at this stage, we scaled it down for our small business by starting with a simple volunteer program.

Let's quickly look at the reasons we decided Doyenz should implement a Social Responsibility program:

• Pragmatic Idealism (a term borrowed from the folks at GOOD): We are idealistic about the future, and want to be pragmatic in our approach to changing it for the better. It is our duty as a member of the corporate world to give back to the community in which we operate and (hopefully) profit from.
• Competitive Advantage: We want Doyenz to be a place that every talented developer in the region wants to work at. We can attract top notch talent by having great company values, and a program like this will be the heart of those core values.
• Internal Benefits: Our company will see benefits such as greater cross-departmental collaboration, getting to know your coworkers outside of the office, general lift in spirits knowing you are helping those who are not as fortunate, and it allows us to get away from the computer and get our hands dirty.
• Change begins with one: It takes a single day of mentoring or volunteering to change an entire life for a young person who does not have adequate support from their own family or school community.

Here are the three lessons we learned during the past couple weeks of getting this program off the ground:

Choose an issue that your team can get behind.

After our VP of Sales and Marketing Eric Webster saw the film Waiting for ‘Superman’, he felt that it was imperative that we implement a program that worked to improve education in our community. One of the biggest challenges we face as a global community is the education crisis, both domestically and internationally. It is an issue that affects everyone in our company and everyone in our community. And it’s an issue that many local, national and international nonprofit organizations support so we knew it wouldn’t be hard to find an organization for us to donate our time to.

Get local.

Once we chose education, I did some research online to identify a few nonprofit organizations in the Seattle area. Turns out that a nonprofit that I had volunteered for through my former employer GOOD has a Seattle branch. Given that the service days organized by City Year Los Angeles were always a huge success, I knew we could trust in their counterparts to the North. In my Program Proposal, I wanted to present a few options so I also selected a local tutoring nonprofit and an organization that focuses on culinary education. 

Start small.

We knew that at this stage in our company’s growth, we wouldn’t be able to fully commit to three organizations, so we decided to go with City Year based on my previous experience with them and the amazing work the City Year Corps do both in the classroom and out. And given that each Corps member gives up a year of their life to better their community, we knew that we could do our part and commit to joining them for service days a couple of times a year and hopefully, as we continue to grow, support them in other ways as well. Start with a smaller commitment — for us it made sense to start with a volunteer program — and expand it to include sustainability and philanthropic initiatives once it makes sense for your company.

Every business has a responsibility to be a good member of the community, but it’s people who make these programs run. Many of you already give back and have experienced the benefits of doing so, and for those who have yet to get involved in the community: think about ways you can scale down a CSR program to fit your business. If you’re a small business, find a nonprofit that already exists in your city and get behind it however you can. Some organizations simply need extra sets of hands.

Come fall, we’re looking forward to supporting the new round of City Year Seattle corps members along side many bigger, well-established Northwest companies (Amazon, Boeing, Microsoft, Safeco, Nordstrom, etc.) We're laying the foundation for a great program, and we'll be able to grow it alongside growing our startup. 

How has your business given back to your local community? Let us know in the comments section.