Is corporate social responsibility a one-time activity for your company?

If the answer is ‘yes’, you’re missing out an opportunity to increase goodwill for your brand and attract new customers for your business.

Social responsibility has witnessed an increased importance among companies over the last few years. As per a recent PWC Global CEO Survey, 64% of CEOs now consider CSR as an integral part of their business strategy. Whether it's by empowering women, helping the environment, or trying to end poverty, more and more companies are incorporating social responsibility into their overall business strategy. There are many reasons why a company might engage in social responsibility, few of them are outlined below for ready reference.

Improves Company’s Brand Image

The public perception of a company is vital for customers and shareholders. Being socially responsible bolster a company’s image and builds its brand image. By being active in community, a company projects a positive image for not only being profitable but for also being socially aware.

Expands Customer Base

Having a social responsibility policy strengthens & impacts the buying decisions of customers. Building relationships with customers is the cornerstone for any business. For example - a bank that offers loans to marginalized section of the society, will be viewed positively by the community and it might boost the sales for the company.

Creates A Differential

When corporates are involved with the community, it generates a trust among the community for them and a differential is created making the company stand out. For example, Tesla Inc. reduced the gap between the corporate world and social responsibility by offering electric-powered cars and products that are environment friendly.

Coca-Cola in 2010, started by 20 initiative to empower 5 million women entrepreneurs across the company’s value chain by 2020.

In a nutshell, both company and community benefit from CSR initiatives. India is a country which with its inequalities, operate in first, second and third world simultaneously. The government is obviously doing its share but organizations have a larger responsibility because their success depends on the society they operate in. The CSR and sustainability strategy should be drawn in congruence with the company's business goals.

CSR can only be driven when people working at the ground level recognize it and the community that is targeted accepts it.

Fiinovation works towards empowering youth through skill development and education.

A leading private sector health insurance company in India entered into a strategic partnership with Fiinovation Pvt. ltd, a global Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) consulting firm, and Pinnacle Skills India, an NGO that works towards empowering youth through skill development and education.

The programme's key objective is to provide skill development opportunities to women from financially disadvantaged communities in 36 districts across 8 states of India. Under this collaboration, Fiinovation and Pinnacle Skills will extend their services to facilitate the corporation's social welfare project for training the youth to take up the roles of General Duty Assistants (GDA).

The project's mandate includes community mobilisation through awareness activities, setting-up training centres for skill development, and ensuring employment opportunities. The complete CSR portfolio will be managed and monitored by Fiinovation team. Pinnacle Skills India took the responsibility to arrange for 'On-Job Training' of the beneficiaries, in hospitals, and multi-speciality clinics.

Upon completion of the training, the beneficiaries will be duly assessed and issued certificates by National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and Sector Skill Council and provided with job placements as GDAs.

Speaking on the launch, Dr. Soumitro Chakraborty, CEO of Fiinovation stressed on the need and importance of women empowerment and their skill development. He stated, "There is a serious decline in women workforce participation due to lack of opportunities, safety and other social stigmas. We want to contribute towards making a social and economic change."
"Percentage of working women has declined over time. With 36% of women being employed in 2005-06, the number has decreased to 24% in 2015-16. This decline must be a major concern for economy and society at large. Owing to the high gender inequality at the workplace, there is an urgent need that calls for an overhaul. It goes without saying that we need to shift focus towards education, skill development and employment opportunities for women, more aggressively than before.

Fiinovation impact assessment for dairy-based CSR intervention in Rajasthan

Innovative Financial Advisors Pvt. Ltd. (Fiinovation) has partnered with a rapidly growing multi-diversified conglomerate to assess the impact of its ongoing CSR intervention in Sikar and Dungarpur district, Rajasthan.

The project focuses on improving dairy output and enhancing milk productivity in rural households. Under the project, Artificial Insemination (AI) services, veterinary care and treatment are provided through trained livestock assistants.

The project is also building the capacity of dairy farmers in order to take up better cattle management practices. To help the farmers better their livestock management, services like 24/7 helpline, health camps and tools such as chaff cutters are provided under the project.

The project has identified 240 Champion farmers from Dungarpur and 200 Champion farmers in Sikar district and is being projected as role models. These farmers are adopting new approaches to enhance milk productivity that include improved feed and fodder practices, scheduled vaccinations, regular veterinary treatment, improved sheds for cattle, procuring better breeds for higher milk production and adopting artificial insemination for improving the breed of existing livestock.

Fiinovation in its capacity has undertaken a comprehensive detailed impact assessment and way forward study of the project in the districts. The study aids in evaluating the design and planning structures of the project, status of on-ground implementation, and internal controls through monitoring mechanisms and assessment of the sustainability of the program.

"With the increasing population, the demand for milk and dairy products will continue to rise. In order to meet the demand, the country needs to upgrade its infrastructure at the village level and adopt advanced techniques to improve livestock production", said Dr. Soumitro Chakraborty, CEO Fiinovation.

"The project in Dungarpur and Sikar, aims to fill the gap in infrastructure and adopt advanced methods to improve milk productivity. The project will not only meet the increased demand for milk and milk products but will also fulfil the objective of doubling the farmer's income"', he added.
Story is provided by NewsVoir.

Fiinovation reviews: Amplifying CSR through Social Media

Gone are the days, when companies use to contribute towards social causes without analysing the social return of investments. The Delhi-based CSR Consultancy, Fiinovation is of opinion that in today’s date, companies are not only doing good but they are also utilizing every possible medium to promote and spread awareness about their social campaigns and sustainability practices. Social media, being the favorite and most effective medium. Hence, it will be foolish of any corporate to ignore the power of social media rather they should use it as a tool to increase the footprint of their corporate social responsibility initiatives across the globe.

Using social media for promoting the good cause can lead to a plethora of business benefits ranging from increased stakeholders engagement, enhanced goodwill, brand visibility and competitive advantage. A joint study by the Pew Research Center and John S. And James L. Knight Foundation reveals that 63% of the space at Facebook and Twitter serves as a source for sharing news about events and global issues. Hence, it is also important to communicate the brand messages to intended audience through the channels preferred by the audiences.

As per cio.com, the 1.8 billion monthly active users of Facebook, sends out an average of 31.25 million messages every minute everyday. These numbers prove that social media platforms provide an influential network of passionate customers supporting brand’s initiatives and endeavours. Companies like P&G have leveraged the benefit of this spectacular stakeholder presence through their campaign, “Future Friendly Challenge” on Facebook. The program was launched to help customers save water, conserve energy, and reduce waste through several activities like donating clean drinking water to children for a day, pledging to save energy and reduce wastage and save energy for 90 days. P&G designed the strategy in a way that customers can send page invitations, educate their friends and motivate them to participate in the challenge. The brand also invited the followers to share their experience and tips on how to fulfil the objectives of this challenge.

Through this simple initiative, P&G received tremendous Return on Engagement within a few months. The statistics show that around 20,000 followers participated in the challenge and saved water and energy as well as reducing wastage for 3 months. The clean drinking was donated by each of them, amounting to 20,000 days of clean water donation. Around 7000 posts were made and shared by the supporters comprising their tips and experiences leading to total active engagement of around 48,000. The above example of P&G, integrating CSR with social media strategy has not only amplified the good actions of the company but have also helped in generating large number of supporters across the social media platform. Additionally, this will create a lasting impact on the minds of customers, strengthen trust and loyalty in the brand providing them edge over their competitors. Fiinovation appreciates P&G for utilizing the social media platforms for spreading awareness about their CSR campaign as well as passively educating customers about the importance of safe drinking water and energy conservation.

Looking at the stupendous growth of social media platforms in near future, brands are not going to leave any stone unturned in communicating and promoting their CSR initiatives on the social networks. They find it the best and easiest mediums to engage their stakeholders and enhance their brand value.

Nike’s Digital Advocacy Director Laura Adams says social media has become instrumental in Nike’s evolution as a brand and as a socially responsible and more sustainable enterprise. “At the end of the day, it’s the people out doing work that are going to get us to achieve our goals,” said Adams.

Need for A Robust CSR Strategy for An Organization ~Fiinovation~

Corporate Social Responsibility is a time-tested mean of addressing social challenges afflicting the society through corporate intervention. It is generally undertaken by corporate houses to create value in the society. To accomplish the same, companies often embed a CSR strategy in their business operations. A comprehensive CSR Strategy is a robust framework on which a corporation lays the foundation of its CSR activities.

The enactment of Indian Companies Act – 2013 brought a paradigm shift in the way CSR activities in India were carried out. The law made CSR a permanent and mandatory fixture of an organization’s business activities. However, at the same time, it incorporated an element of flexibility that allows corporations to design a CSR strategy that is in alignment with the business domain of their organizations.

Companies can select from any of the pressing issues that they can relate to in any way and channelize their funds accordingly. The issue chosen can either be related to their core business or something different. However, the ways in which organizations implement their CSR activities in India have also changed substantially. Besides earmarking and doling out funds for societal welfare, corporations have also started promoting voluntary services by their employees. While the ground realities necessitate that CSR activities largely remain intact, the emphasis now is to garner long-term value for the organization and the society.

So, what are the factors that should be the guiding factors for the overall CSR Strategy? And what impact will they have on the long-term results for the organization and the society? Let’s check.

Compliance
The primary requirement of a CSR strategy is to adhere to the rules and regulations laid down by the Companies Act – 2013. Compliance ensures that the organization doesn’t contravene the law and that its funding for the social welfare follows statutory regulations including environmental laws, social laws, and other government norms. Moreover, abiding by the standard parameters makes sure that funds are effectively utilized for CSR implementation.

SocialCause
The main aim of mandatory CSR for organizations fulfilling minimum eligibility criteria is to address social issues and grievances. Organizations have the liberty to select the social cause they want to address depending on factors best known to them. They can also choose to coordinate the initiatives based on their CSR Strategy with other national and international assistance programs.

StakeholderEngagement
When drafting a CSR strategy from scratch, organizations must lay emphasis on three main stakeholders – Workforce, Target Community, and Customers. These organizations should encourage their employees and motivate them to get involved in the ongoing social interventions. Also, the organizations can lay emphasis on the communities in the vicinity of their premises and try to bring about a positive change in their lives. This way they will be able to forge a strong bond with the locals. Moreover, companies should try to create a positive brand value by involving their customers or clients in their CSR efforts. A good start can be made by pledging a percentage of income from sales to a social cause.

Business
Organizations should place emphasis on value that is created through the social endeavors. The value is created on the back of four factors- Product Innovation, Skill Enhancement, Value Chain Enhancement and Market Value. Via these factors, organizations can take advantage of their technical capabilities to manufacture products that resolve a particular social problem. For example, for sanitary equipment manufacturers, this could be an inexpensive bio-toilet that will go a long way in solving the problem of lack of sanitation facilities in the countryside. Similarly, organizations can engage youth and increase their skill sets, which in the longer run, will also improve their prospects of decent livelihood.

Companies can leverage the benefits of these factors of CSR Strategy by creating essential services such as sanitation, health care, clean drinking water, education and financial literacy. There are immense opportunities in the CSR domain for the corporates. Their timely interventions in the social sector will also go a long way in improving the situation on the ground.

Ground rules for undertaking CSR activities in India

The enactment of the Companies Act of 2013 has completely transformed the CSR landscape in India. The revolutionary act mandated companies, fulfilling specific criteria, to carry out CSR activities in India. While there are some companies whose CSR initiatives predate the enforcement of this law, however, this act has radically altered the way the social sector is looked at by making CSR an indispensable part of the business discourse. Besides mandating CSR, the act has played a pivotal role in ensuring its own compliance by incorporating key provisions of monitoring, evaluation, and annual disclosure.

For starters, the act has made it compulsory for a company with either a net value of 500 crores, a turnover of 100 crores, or a net profit of 5 crores, to devote at least 2% of their net profit on CSR activities in India. And it is not all about pouring money in some social welfare. It is equally essential for these organizations to create functional CSR strategies while simultaneously overhauling internal systems that can decisively turn those visions into reality.

It is important to be acquainted with one’s proficiencies and shortcomings when taking actions to turn things around. This is the reason why companies undertaking CSR activities in India should have a prudent vision to visualize needs and outcomes and plan the execution of initiatives accordingly.

The probability of errors and omissions increases significantly when the initiatives are based on desired outcomes. However, the case is entirely different when initiatives are based on well-researched facts and figures. Some of the factors to be taken into account while doing the groundwork for CSR initiatives are mentioned below.

Determining the right partners
Forging and cementing a working relationship with NGOs is one of the ways through which an organization can get the intrinsic knowledge of the area that one intends to cater to. Although, the big corporations have the capital, they are more or less oblivious to the problems affecting the lower strata of the society on a regular basis.

This is exactly where the role of a CSR-CSO consulting company comes into play. |In spite of limited financial resources at their disposal, they are well versed in dealing with the problems of the society. Corporations can integrate themselves with the community that they intend to serve by tying up with local CSOs.

Monitoring of progress
Efficient tracking is critical to comprehend the progress being achieved as well as to determine the distance to be traversed to reach the ultimate goal. Parameters must be set to specify the short-term and long-term goals so that they can efficiently map out their progress. It must be noted that while short-term goals are easier to achieve, long-term impacts are the true indicators of a successful CSR campaign.

Data collection
Data collection is an essential factor in mapping the progress made in achieving short-term and long-term CSR goals of an organization. Data collection revolves around mapping fields relevant to the need assessments and is pivotal in zeroing in on the direct beneficiaries of the CSR strategy. These beneficiaries could be impacted by CSR activities in terms of healthcare, primary, secondary and higher education, skill training and the environment where they live.

Quality analysis
Post data collection, the Qualitative Analysis is the next step to classify data in terms of criticality levels. Statistics collected on the needs of a community must be classified on the basis of their criticality to the community. For instance, a playground might be needed for the holistic growth of children of a community, however, precedence must be given to a maternity ward if the community has high maternal and infant mortality rates. The aforementioned illustrates the importance of analysis while undertaking CSR activities in India.

Output to Impact
It must be thoroughly studied whether the intended intervention for the community is feasible and financially viable within the stipulated budget or not. The outcomes must be measured against long-term impacts. Only when outcomes transform into long-term social impacts, an organization can claim CSR activities in India as effective and everlasting.

6 criteria to be considered to select an effective CSR consulting firm from a list of CSR Consultants in India.

According to the Companies Act which came into effect in 2013, companies with a net worth of Rs 500 crore on revenue of Rs 10,000 or net profit of Rs 5 crore on revenue of Rs 10,000 or net profit of Rs 5 crore should spend 2% of their average profit in the last three years on social development such as health and sanitation, poverty alleviation, among others listed in Schedule VII of the rules.

With the implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in India, not much has been changed in patterns of spending by the top 100 National Stock Exchange (NSE) listed companies. While the education and healthcare sector has been rapidly attracting eyeballs of CSR Funding, Maharastra still sees the maximum inflow of CSR spends. The top listed companies still account for almost half of the total CSR Spends.

In the recent years, India inc. has increased its CSR spending in 2017-18 to Rs 9,034 crore, including activities such as the promotion of education, vocational skill development, environmental sustainability and development of slum seeing an increase in expenditure. Notably, CSR expenditure by the companies towards poverty alleviation and promotion of healthcare and sanitation has witnessed a drop in 2016-17, as the total spends on the activity fell to Rs 549 crore or 18.6% from 2,944 crores in 2015-16 to Rs 2,394 crore in 2016-17 according to a report published at The Indian Express.

According to a report from PRIME Database, the CSR Spending statistics of India states that while 1,091 listed companies spent amount to the tune of Rs 9,034 crore towards CSR in FY17, implying that Indian corporates under CSR expenditures are giving more priority on education and vocational skills. 2016-17 witnessed a Rs 591 crore rise in CSR spends from Rs 2,793 crore in FY16 to Rs 3,384 crore in FY17. Education and vocational skills account for 37% of the total CSR spend by the Indian Corporates.  

Based on the CSR strategy of Corporates, other sectors that have seen a significant increase from education and skill development sector is the expenditure towards benefiting the armed forces veterans, war widows, and their dependents have registered the biggest increase in percentage terms. The spend has almost seen a jump of three times from Rs 24.5 crore in 2015-16 to Rs 73 crore in 2016-17.

According to report, the CSR spend growth towards armed forces veterans and dependents of martyrs is in accordance with the Government’s decision in November 2016 to double the compensation for widows and families of soldiers. Apart from these sectors, community development, infrastructure, social welfare, sports and slum development have also registered a significant increase in CSR spends.

As the companies have implanted Corporate Social Responsibility into their businesses, the value of working with CSR consultant is not always clear. In many cases, Corporates interested in CSR and are looking to attain sustainable goals, don’t feel the need to hire CSR consultants from outside. For them merely conducting an employee engagement activity will suffice the cause.  However, there are some exceptions to CSR activities conducted for social development, as these include areas such as social audits of supply chains, environmental impact assessments, and measurement of social outcomes where third-party verification/assurance is appropriate and necessary. Overall, the objective should be to build internal CSR capacity wherever possible.

As there is a rapid rise in the CSR initiatives in India, finding suitable CSR consultants is equally not possible. There’s now so much choice that Corporates while searching for a perfect CSR consultancy have a hard time selecting the right CSR advisor.  

However, a checklist for Corporates to keep in mind while selecting that right CSR consultant will definitely help to understand and conduct the best CSR activities in India. Here are the six criteria that are important.

1. Work experience: One important aspect to keep in mind while selecting a CSR consultancy is the past record and work experience of the company. Have they worked for corporations and not-for-profit organizations? What kind of businesses have they worked with? A clear understanding of these is important while selecting the CSR consultant.
2. Research Methodology: Understanding the method of research used by the identified CSR consultant is also important. Systematic study and analysis of collected evidence and data points with a linked and inclusive perspective to support the policy level decision making must be the specialty of the consultancy. It should be based on learning, analysis and should be action-oriented.
3. Proper CSR-CSO partnership: A well captivated civil society organization with the required experience to implement the initiative must be given utmost priority by the consultants. Building a credible network of civil societies is crucial. A consultant must identify and select credible implementing partners with relevant experience for the programme and hold a command on community mobilization while also mitigating the risks when required.
4. Understand your Social return on investment: Only having academic credentials and practical experience in business is not enough. CSR is all about bridging the gap between profit and purpose which means that the advisors must be capable enough to provide you an in-depth knowledge on how social change works. An efficient CSR consultancy helps the corporate identify how effectively the organization uses its capital and other resources to create value for the community.
5. Diversity: Identifying the work scope and areas of work is equally crucial for a CSR consultant. One must understand that CSR consultants reflecting the internal and external audiences one needs to reach and influence. This means the consultant must have access to a wide range of different opinions and to people of different ages, genders, and culture.
6. Building capacity: The best CSR consultants places itself to the highest degree of priority on putting themselves out of priority and concentrate on delivering outputs.