Social Impact & Volunteering

The Impossible Task of the CSR Manager

Do you want to improve your workplace giving program, but you're don’t know where to start? Have you tried to increase participation in the corporate volunteering program but nothing seems to work? Here's some help.
Jul 2, 2012 3:00 PM ET

Realized Worth Blog

Read the original blog post here.

CSR Managers - an impossible task?

Managing a company’s employee volunteering and workplace giving program is not an easy assignment. First, everything is voluntary: participation, recording hours, sharing stories - everything. It’s rare to find companies that integrate the civic activities of their employees into job functions and evaluations. According to our research, only 28% of companies had some type of explicit connection between CSR and HR. That will change dramatically over the next decade. You can learn more about the trend towards integration in Andrea Newell’s article on Triple Pundit. But for now - it's a problem.

Second, the organizational structures of companies are not designed to deliver effective and impactful corporate citizenship programs. The CSR manager, while 100% responsible for employee participation and resulting outcomes, typically has only 25% of the authority to make those things happen. Based on our 2011 research, most CSR managers must gain significant buy-in from HR, Marketing, PR, Legal and Communications just to do the job they’ve been hired to do. (Download Part 1 of our Employee Volunteer 2011 Survey).

We talk to dozens of CSR managers every month and many of them are frustrated and discouraged. They clearly see the benefits of engaging their employees in volunteering, giving or even sustainability initiatives. Beyond the potential to address social and environmental problems, these managers understand that these programs are actually key strategies to the overall success of the company. (Be sure to check out the business case for corporate volunteering at the end of this article).

We can help

This is what we do. We work with companies to do more than just overcome the obvious barriers between the way things are and the way things could be. We become the CSR  manager’s virtual team. We do the work to mobilize employees in all aspects of corporate citizenship programs. We won’t just drop a 30-page strategy on the table and walk away. We won’t leave you with a communications plan and say, “Good luck with that.” We won’t help you plan an event and then leave you to manage the details.

We will collaborate with you to design an outstanding program and then we work alongside you to implement it. We will recruit employees, offer training, provide templates (for everything), find nonprofit partners, plan enjoyable and impactful events, and collect all the metrics you could want.

Your budget is no longer a barrier

Until recently, we were frustrated. We knew there were thousands of CSR managers who wanted to take their employee volunteering and giving programs to the next level but didn’t have the budget to work with us. We offered workshops, but there’s only so much information we could pass along in 3 - 6 hours.

But now we have a game changer: Cohort Consulting.

Cohort Consulting allows us to offer our services at - literally - 1/25th of the price.

What is Cohort Consulting?

Cohort Consulting is a blended approach, offering participants access to effective and proven strategies within a highly supportive peer environment.

Cohort Consulting is:

    • Cost-effective
    • Supportive
    • Comprehensive
Is Cohort Consulting the right choice for you?

Good question. If you can answer yes to any of the following questions, Cohort Consulting is likely a fit.

  • Would you like the benefit of outside consulting expertise, but your budget won’t allow it?
  • Do you wonder about best-practices but you’re unsure where to find examples?
  • Would you like to benchmark your program against the best in class, but you’re not sure what that is?
  • Do you want to improve your program, but you don’t know where to start?
  • Do you wonder which metrics are important?
  • Are you concerned that you don’t have a plan to capture the data you need to prove the success of your program?
  • Have you tried to increase participation, but nothing seems to work?
Want to learn more? Check out our blog series: The Business Case for Employee Volunteering
Realized Worth logo