DRIVING SOCIAL IMPACT: INTEGRATION TOOLS & STRATEGIES

The Purpose

The Community

One and done volunteer projects or single donations are not the solution to our greatest community needs. While these can contribute to the overall impact, consider how complex it might be to end poverty in your community, for example. To solve increasingly complex social issues, companies must take a multifaceted approach to effectively address community needs. For companies that have integrated their community engagement programs throughout their business, addressing community needs becomes a priority, not just for a foundation or for HR but for everyone. This means a stronger overall commitment to the community.

Ultimately, companies that have stronger integration are often more resilient and better prepared to respond to crises that may impact their employees and the local community.

As you work to integrate your programs, we hope you will experience a shift in your company’s operations from being a community supporter to a leader and advocate for change. The goal is to establish deep long-term relationships with nonprofit partners, and we know you can do it with the right guidance.

Your Business & Employees

You know that employee engagement in the community is good for business and benefits your employees. Integration helps prove that benefit internally. Specifically, this integration can help:

• Scale impact and responsibility of community engagement work. Not only does integrating your employee engagement strategy empower your company to better support the community, it also spreads the responsibility across other employees and departments. This is critical given that most companies are understaffed or have no full-time employees responsible for community engagement initiatives. If this is your experience, stay positive! Integration leads to more buy-in and companywide commitment.
• Demonstrate your organizational values in action. You might list community engagement on your website, but if we asked every employee about your company’s commitment, how do you think they would respond? Having your community engagement work show up in other departments and institutionalizing it in your policies and culture demonstrates a true commitment to your community.
• Engage and support employees. Integrating community engagement and volunteerism as an HR initiative helps increase morale and sense of purpose and promotes cross-functional teamwork and interaction with senior leadership. Additionally, volunteering and leading others in service can serve as cost-effective ways to practice and gain important professional skills while also breaking down silos across disparate business functions.
• Strengthen recruitment and retention. The investment in helping employees channel their need for purpose into giving back is paying off, and companies are seeing reduced turnover because of it.

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THE TOOLS

Imagine the thread of your employee engagement efforts weaving throughout your company’s departments or business lines. Considering how your work might impact these different groups will ensure that you have supporters across the company. The integration process is not only a way forward to solidifying your program’s strategy, but an opportunity to build advocates cross-functionally. Remember, the more “fans” of employee and community engagement, the easier it is to create buy-in around programming, staffing and funding. The following are the most important areas of your business to leverage when creating your strategy.

Business Functions & Departments

Human Resources

If you don’t currently hold an HR role, expect to work with your HR department very closely. Most often, employee and community engagement strategies stem from this department as they have a pulse on the people and culture of the company. HR may already provide opportunities for employees to develop new experiences, knowledge, skills and relationships. By building on top of the existing, ongoing efforts, your strategy development can rely on this foundation rather than starting from scratch.

The key to a successful employee engagement program isn’t simply to recognize the added HR benefits of employee volunteerism (e.g., morale, team building, skill development, sense of pride), but rather to plan them into the department itself. Think of the “stronger together” mentality. This proactively helps maximize benefits to both your employees and your business objectives.

While HR’s role might vary greatly across companies, consider a few fun and creative opportunities to leverage your community engagement, including:

• Recruitment: highlighting your community engagement programs, values and impact in recruitment ads and materials
• Internship Programs: planning volunteer projects for interns and educating them on your community engagement initiatives
• New Hire Onboarding: educating new hires on your community engagement programs and showing how they can get involved as well as highlighting their cause/volunteering interests in welcome announcements
• Business Resource Groups: empowering employee-led groups to lead community engagement projects aligned with their interests and providing valuable feedback and ideas for other company-sponsored community initiatives
• Employee Events: incorporating volunteering or community engagement into staff events (e.g., having a food or book drive as part of your holiday party or a presentation by a nonprofit partner at a leadership retreat)
• Training & Skill Development: utilizing hands-on and skills-based volunteer opportunities to help employees develop specific skill sets and professional experiences
• Annual Reviews: incorporating community engagement goals and/or discussions into employee annual reviews
• Employee Surveys: capturing both the impact and satisfaction of your company’s community engagement program on employees and specific outcomes from volunteer events

Diversity & Inclusion  

Depending on the size of your company, you might have an entirely separate team dedicated to diversity and inclusion (D&I). If this is the case, engaging with your D&I team is critical as a strong engagement strategy must consider the diversity of your employees and your community and therefore practice inclusion intentionally. Regardless of the structure, your community engagement program can play a critical role in helping build a more diverse and inclusive workplace.

When building your community engagement strategy through a D&I lens, consider diversity as the “what” and inclusion as the “how.” Your programming should be made up of opportunities for a diverse group of employees (e.g., gender, race, ability, sexual orientation, etc.) and serve the diversity in your community. Inclusion takes your program’s strategy even further by asking, “How will this diverse group engage?” and “Does everyone feel comfortable, welcome and invited to join your planned activities?”

Ensuring your programs are inclusive starts with understanding the needs and interests of your employees. Successful programs include opportunities that accommodate employees of all physical abilities as well as schedule flexibility (i.e., some employees may not be able to participate during the workday while others may not be able to participate in a weekend activity).

If already in place, Business Resource Groups can also be an excellent opportunity to integrate your community engagement program. Many companies empower employee-led groups and provide them with resources to lead community projects and activities that align with their interest. These groups can also provide valuable feedback and perspectives as you plan your companywide community engagement programs that may otherwise go unheard.

Get excited! When done right, this D&I work will facilitate relationships between employees of diverse backgrounds or career stages, as well as foster learning opportunities and a productive dialogue around issues of race, equity and inclusion.

Marketing & PR

Storytelling is a powerful force, especially when sharing your company’s authentic efforts around community change. When working with your marketing department, consider how creating a positive impact in your community is a direct reflection of your company and its employees. More consumers are calling on companies to provide solutions over lip service.

If your strategy is addressing community needs, it is likely your marketing department will see amplifying those stories as a natural fit and may not even require significant new investments of time or resources. This integration can be extremely effective in advocating for social issues and community partner organizations. Below are three types of ways a company might consider integrating their community engagement work:

• Issue Awareness: promoting social issues and resources on social media and through other communication channels as well as by creating PSAs
• Nonprofit Support: amplifying your nonprofit partners work and needs (help them advocate, fundraising, volunteer recruitment) as well as donating ad space and marketing services
• Company Marketing: highlighting your company’s community engagement programs and impact in your company’s marketing assets (e.g., website, advertisements, brochures)
• Cause Marketing: developing more sophisticated marketing strategies that have the dual purpose of driving profitability and advancing a social cause or nonprofit partner (ex., making a product or financial donation for every purchase)

Remember, authentic marketing integration derives more loyal fans, follows and customers — a win for both the company and the community.

Purchasing & Sourcing

Transparency is key. Your company’s purchases and vendors are now being evaluated on social issues and values — from reducing environmental impact to supporting women and minority-owned businesses and helping small businesses in your community.

Your company’s purchasing power can be an influential tool to address social challenges and issues when effectively integrated with your community engagement program. Researching and building an understanding of how your vendors and suppliers align (or not) with your company’s culture can help to highlight disconnects between your values and business operations.

Helping your purchasing and sourcing departments understand the tremendous opportunity for “purpose” in their work can help advance your community engagement program and the causes you support. If your company has determined how you might leverage your purchasing power for good, you can expand your community engagement strategy to include benchmarks, goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) to expand around the resulting impact.

Other Lines of Business  

While this resource covered ideas for integrating community engagement with HR, marketing and purchasing/sourcing, there are certainly many more departments and business functions that you can, and should, leverage as you build your program. Just as a rope becomes stronger with intertwined fibers, your strategy will become more critical to your company as you engage more lines of business. From legal and finance to research and development, just imagine the impact you can have on your community, your employees and your company by aligning goals and priorities.

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Leadership & Culture

Leadership & Board Engagement

“Lead by example,” “top-down,” “executive buy-in” — however you spin it, it’s important. Time and time again, attempts to create a culture shift within companies fail without the involvement of the decision-makers. With engaged leadership and input from the board, advocating for greater investments in your program becomes easier and your strategy will have a higher probability for success.

One way to keep your leadership and board informed and involved is to ensure that community engagement is a standing agenda item on all executive, companywide and board meetings. Sharing regular reports and advocating to make community engagement a standing agenda item in executive and board meetings are great ways to ensure that your senior leadership and board members are educated and informed on how the company is having an impact.

While staying informed is helpful, actually engaging these leaders in your program is equally important. Rather than dropping in for a last-minute photo opportunity, plan your volunteer programs in coordination with your senior leaders to encourage their participation and elevate them as champions of the project or cause. This doesn’t have to be your CEO (although engage them if possible). Go as high up as you can when planning and then let the impact prove valuable by asking for time from higher leadership.

If your company is all-in and looking to integrate a larger systemic shift toward community engagement, consider including engagement activities in performance reviews and department goals/KPIs. This creates a direct and tangible incentive for leaders; it also helps measure and benchmark your company’s progress.

Mission & Values

No longer is simply providing a good or service considered the acceptable standard for business. A company’s purpose must align with a greater community benefit. Formalizing this commitment publicly can raise the expectations to do good in authentic and significant ways and generate greater support and buy-in from stakeholders such your employees, board members and customers.

The most important proof point when aligning your purpose with community is to state your company’s intentions and then back it up with action. Your community engagement strategy can be the key to those driving actions that, ultimately, strengthen the value of your company’s brand recognition and trust.

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THE ACTION PLAN

Here is some homework before you begin integrating your employee engagement strategy across your company. It is important to reflect before you act, especially when your actions could have major business implications. Consider these questions and the reflections below before expanding your program.

Is community engagement a standing agenda item on regular all-staff and board meetings?

Not only is good news always worth sharing, it will elevate the importance of your company’s commitment to the community! Just as your company should be transparent about resources and investments in new products or business operations, so should it be with those that it directs toward community engagement initiatives.

Do you have a recurring meeting with senior leaders to discuss engagement and volunteering goals for the year?

Give these discussions the attention they deserve and take the first step of scheduling a recurring meeting! Bring progress reports on your community engagement objectives, remind leaders of the business benefits of volunteering and seek input for how you can help their teams get more involved. For some, it might be scheduling the projects at different times, others might need more detailed instructions or even friendly competitions to motivate their employees. Set your leader up for success and come with those thoughtful, innovative and engaging ideas.

Do you know how your community engagement work could support each department’s business objectives and your goals?

Set up individual meetings with department leaders to understand what challenges they will face in the coming year and determine how volunteering and other community engagement initiatives can support them. Do they need more visibility in a certain market? Or an “in” with a new client? This is also a great opportunity to discuss how their work can support your company’s community engagement initiatives and causes. Could the purchasing department buy from more minority owned businesses? Could HR include community engagement in staff surveys and even performance reviews?

Can you clearly articulate the purpose of your company’s community engagement program? Where does it show up?

It may sound trivial, but clearly and concisely defining the purpose of your program helps guide your strategy and decisions about where and how to invest resources. Once defined, where does this language show up? Is it mentioned in your company’s values? Is it included on your website, in communications materials, employee handbooks and recruiting materials? Perhaps, you have an intranet where announcements about your program could live. The more visibility, the better.

What employee groups or ongoing activities could be incorporated into community impact work?

One benefit of integration is that it lets you scale your program and impact often without ever having to create new programs or events. How might volunteering or community impact work be incorporated into employee resource groups, internships, alumni or even engaging your employees’ families? Likewise, how can community impact be incorporated into your company activities, including all staff gatherings, leadership retreats and even holiday parties? You will be surprised at how many ways you can scale your impact and integrate your work throughout your company.

Are you using your communication channels to promote causes and organizations your business supports?

There are many easy low (or no) budget ways to integrate your community engagement work with your marketing and communication department that can help raise awareness and support for your nonprofit partners. Can you share content on social media, inform employees in newsletters or on your intranet, or even feature a nonprofit partner in your marketing materials and advertisements?

Could your spending and purchasing be more impactful?

Like marketing, integrating your community impact with purchasing and sourcing can have a high impact without much effort. Every time you spend money, there might be an opportunity to support a cause or initiative that aligns with your community impact work. Work with your purchasing and financing department to review a list of expenditures to start a conversation about where you might incorporate different products or vendors. Are there any minority-owned businesses you could use for vendors (large contracts or even a caterer for staff meetings and events)? Are there more sustainable products you could purchase (compostable or reusable products for your break room)? Rather than take new clients out for a fancy dinner (or in addition to), how would they feel if you made a donation in their honor, perhaps to a charitable organization of their choice?

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