Attention recent MBA grads and pencil pushers, please consider yourself warned…you’re not going to like this post.

Because it’s about measuring corporate social responsibility efforts and how this conversation is starting to make me a little bit, um…CRANKY.

Because you see, my faithful ROI chasers, you’re kind of missing the point of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by demanding a “social impact” calculation before you’ll even glance in the direction of CSR.  You insist on “proof” that this will positively influence your business model before you condone even the smallest projects.  Or perhaps you reluctantly agree to pilot an initiative, then rush to measure its impact nine ways to sundown and come up short in the tangible “proof” department.

Of Course Measurement is Important

Of course I realize that capturing key metrics of CSR is important.  I believe that, inherently, CSR efforts will lead to long-term and sustainable impact in your bottom line.  Just not the way you’re trying to prove that it will.  And probably not as quickly as you’d like.  CSR is a long-term investment, not a quick fix.

At the end of the day, my personal belief is that, if you fail to “get” this movement, whether you call it CSR or not, your business will go the way of the dodo.  Not today.  Not tomorrow.  But someday.  As Gil Friend astutely points out in a recent blog post,

“The question is not ‘Can you find a viable business case for the carbon-constrained world that is rapidly heading your way?’ The question is ‘How can you create one?’ Because you will find one, create one or die.”

Here’s are a few of the challenges with measuring CSR efforts as I see it:

The Uncertainty Principle (or “Frying the Ant”)

As soon as you step in to push your measurement agenda, the spirit and passion that leads those efforts dies a little.  In quantum physics (bear with me here), scientists discovered that “the very act of measuring one magnitude of a particle, be it its mass, its velocity, or its position, causes the other magnitudes to blur”, making accurate measurement impossible. This is called The Uncertainty Principle and I think it applies to CSR in a roundabout way.

Being a better corporate citizen is hard to measure.  How exactly do you measure intangible benefits like authenticity, good will, community investment and trust?  Yet these are the very things that engender customer loyalty.  Hold up the magnifying glass too closely and too often and you risk frying the ant.  And let’s be honest…as a kid, did you really use a magnifying glass to examine the ant or send it out of this world in a blaze of spontaneous glory?

Not Enough Emphasis on Future Trends and Risk Analysis

Also in the aforementioned post by Gil Friend is the consideration of risk.  Friend advises,

“Volatile times demand that companies ‘factor the future’ into these assessments, with explicit consideration of risk in the sustainability business case.”

He points to unknowns such as energy availability and prices, changing regulations and financial crisis.  Friend also mentions changing customer expectations which is, I think, a biggie and one that savvy companies will keep an eye on.  Recent surveys by Edelman, Cone and Burson-Marsteller clearly demonstrate that, if given a choice, customers will choose the company demonstrating socially responsible practices over one that does not.

Too Many Useless Metrics

What you measure IS important.  Again, calculating every metric known to man on your CSR programs is probably a huge waste of time.  At the end of the day, what are the key metrics that demonstrably matter?  Do you know?  If you’re unsure as to whether it matters or not, think seriously about measuring it.  I was intrigued to read the comments of The Harlem Children’s Zone founder, Geoffrey Canada when asked, “Harlem Children’s Zone is midway through a 20-year completion cycle. How do you define success? What benchmark tells you the work is successful—or not?”  Canada replied (to much controversy),

“The only benchmark of success is college graduation. That’s the only one: How many kids you got in college, how many kids you got out. Everything else is interim.”

Ask yourself what it is you truly need to capture.  Think long and hard.  Measure it because it matters, not because fear and the status quo dictate that you should.

@meganstrand

You can also find this post in a shorter version as a guest post for Semiosis Communications.

Read more about strategic non-profit/partnerships...

When it comes to recruiting community business partners, non-profit organizations are astute at leveraging the resources at hand. Frequently, this includes Board member connections. It also pays to reach out to community “neighbors”, according to Linda McNeill, Executive Director of Portland, OR-based Step It Up, Inc.

A non-profit organization dedicated to providing youth
with access to career exploration and employment
opportunities, Step It Up, Inc. is cleverly located
within a popular shopping mall in the Portland area to more
effectively target area youth. One neighbor within the mall, Dominique Nazario, a manager from American Eagle, recognized the value of Step It Up’s mission immediately. She had witnessed a steady stream of teenage applicants applying for jobs with American Eagle she couldn’t even consider hiring due to their lack of the most basic resume and application skills. “Because Dominique saw the need first-hand, we were able to enlist this manager to develop all of the materials for our 3-month employment preparedness curriculum,” comments McNeill. “She intuitively knew the needs of our community’s youth and was able to help design a curriculum to support them.”

Development Officer Jevan Williams with Vancouver, WA-based non-profit Children’s Center couldn’t agree more. Dedicated to providing mental health services for children and supporting families, Children’s Center has found ready partners by looking to local neighbors. For over 11 years, neighbor Java House has supported the initiatives of Children’s Center, hosting toy and food drives in support of families in need. “It’s all about relationships,” according to Williams. “Our Executive Director gets coffee at Java House every day. Our staff circulates through constantly. They get to talking about the work we do and, as a result, conversations start about how to support that work because they’re able to see how it benefits the whole community.”

While neither of these non-profit organizations relies primarily on community business partnerships, both McNeill and Williams report the sense of community as being fundamental to accomplishing their mission.

From Step It Up, Inc. and Children’s Center, here are a few lessons to take away:

1) Develop Solid Relationships and Communicate. Both of these organizations were able to gain valuable contributions from neighborhood businesses because they established a relationship and communicated about the important work they were doing. Sometimes partnerships organically develop because of a shared interest or cause. But it’s critical to get the word out about what you’re doing and the impact of your presence. If no one knows what you’re up to, they’ll never be able to lend a hand.

2) Look To Your Neighbors. If you’re doing work that serves your local community, odds are that your neighbors will recognize the value of your work. Everyone in a neighborhood benefits when the neighborhood thrives. Most neighbors recognize the value in “pitching in” to accomplish that goal. Even when the missions of the organizations involved are very different, the commonality of sharing a community can generate lasting partnerships.

From the beginning of our relationship with this vendor, we were introduced to the Sales Manager, a gregarious, likable guy with a mean sense of humor that we’ll call “John”.  At the beginning of our relationship, we didn’t have much contact with John, dealing with rotating account reps on our project.  As things started going south, we began having more and more contact with John, bypassing the account reps to deal directly with him.  He was the one person in the vendor organization that leveled with us, seemed to understand our perspective and advocated on our behalf with the Web Developer and CEO.

Even when things got rough and our frustration level grew, he continued to answer the phone…sometimes at odd hours of the night…and talked us off the ledge.  In hindsight, he was put in a terribly difficult position – representing his company while still trying to advocate for us, the customer, even when our position wasn’t popular.  He maintained the only level of professionalism we saw from that vendor after our initial meeting.    We trusted him and felt comfortable continuing to be honest with him.  We kept him in the loop for the most part, even when our attorney got involved.

It would’ve been easier for him to write us off as a “difficult client” and shy away from advocating on our behalf.  It would’ve been easier to lie.  To conceal.  To allow our calls to go unanswered.  But he didn’t.  He stepped up to face the music, played the intermediary between us and the vendor.  To ensure the success of the project.  To ensure that we had a website after investing pretty much all the capital we had.

All the tools we’ve discussed over the past week in this blog are valuable and useful for entrepreneurs and small business owners and can bring your project to the next level, to be sure.  But at the end of the day, it truly does come down to the people with whom you interact.  Their integrity level.  Their belief in what you’re trying to accomplish.  And similarly, your integrity level, your commitment to the project.  So, above all else, pay attention to the people.  Their purpose.  Your purpose.  Do they match?  If not, keep moving.

We were fortunate enough to happen upon a “project angel” in John, for which we remain eternally grateful.  The lessons John taught us about maintaining professionalism and integrity in a firestorm may be the most valuable thing we learned through our tumultuous experience.  At the end of the day, projects get done because outstanding people are committed to getting them done.

You may have noticed by now that the theme for this week is creating and honoring space…the space in which you sometimes find yourself, the space necessary to rejuvenate those creative juices.  So today we look at the space around us we choose to fill with relationships of all types.

We all have differing degrees of relationships at any given time in our life.  The degree to which we depend upon these relationships varies by individual, also.  Some of us choose to surround ourselves with just a few close friends while some of us prefer to have an endless list of people to call (or text or email) on any given day.  And apparently, we swap out friends on a periodic basis.  A study out of the Netherlands claims we replace half of our friends every 7 years.

Most of us don’t give whole lot of thought to our commitment to these relationships – if they’re positive, they just seem to float along effortlessly.  If they’re negative, we tend to either ditch them or make the choice to keep them and complain about them incessantly.  A concept I’ve recently been introduced to through Steve Linder is called the Hierarchy of Relationships.  Essentially, the Hierarchy of Relationships maps out the relationships in your life in concentric circles.  In the very middle are the foundational relationships in your life – those people for whom you’d do just about anything.  If they need you, you’re there and vice versa.  Linder refers to this as your “cabinet”.  The next circle represents your “peers”.  These are the people that mean a lot to you, you feel comfortable sharing most things with them and enjoy a positive relationship.  The next circle represents “friends”.  These are the people with whom you have contact and with whom you are friendly, but you either don’t know them well enough yet to trust them inherently or you’ve made the conscious decision not to place them higher up for whatever reason.  The next circle represents “acquaintances” and the final “strangers”, both relatively self-explanatory.

Here’s how this is useful.  Think about the people in your life that you’d place in your innermost circle, your “cabinet”.  What are the things they must do to remain in your cabinet and what are the things they must never do?  For example, “My cabinet must always be truthful with me, even if don’t want to hear it, because I know they have my best interest at heart.” and “My cabinet must never lie to me.”  Now, flip it around…what are the things YOU must do for your cabinet?  “I must be in touch at least once a week.”  “I must make an effort to see them in person at least once a month.” “I must be 100% honest, even if it hurts their feelings in the short run.” and so on.  Now think about the people in your life you’d place in the next circle, your “peers”.  List the responsibilities for each of you at that level and so on.  This tool is obviously the most useful at the highest levels.  Here’s why it’s a neat model:  Sometimes we encounter disappointment or surprise in friendships.  Maybe you were treating someone like a “cabinet” member, when in reality and judging by their actions, they were really a “peer”.  Had you realized this from the start, your expectations would’ve been in better alignment.  It allows you to be more intentional with your relationships.

Here’s a tip as you’re thinking about your “cabinet”, your innermost circle.  Being a blood relative does not buy someone a ticket into your cabinet.  Your brother may be a cabinet member while your mom falls under the peer category.  And that’s OK.  Again, the name of the game here is to both manage your expectations and to raise the bar for yourself in how you choose to treat and honor the relationships in your life.  If you say Johnny is your “best friend in the whole world” but you haven’t picked up the phone to check in for 6 months, you might want to take a look to see if you’re measuring up to your own expectations for how you want to show up for that friend.

Take a moment today and think about your innermost circle of relationships.  What are the expectations you have for those people?  What are the expectations you have for yourself relating to those people?  And…most importantly, are you living up to those expectations?