“The business just doesn’t get what we’re trying to do here!”

“The C-suite doesn’t have time to spend on this…it’s not at the top of their priority list.”

“…We have a strategy.  We’re just looking for Marketing to help us with the tagline.” 

Working with corporate foundations, CSR departments and corporate community involvement professionals, I can expect every client I serve to articulate a frustration similar to one or all of the above.  And while these frustrations might be derived from something as simple as trying to schedule a meeting, they are indicative of a deep organizational divide that continues to hamper many corporations today.  These statements together reflect two critical barriers to corporations’ and corporate philanthropists’ ability to truly drive social change:

• Corporations do not sufficiently recognize the business value of social investments
• Philanthropists have not successfully harnessed the power of corporations in driving social change

In short, neither player values the other in what is a tandem approach to social change and business results.  Ultimately, each achieves sub-optimal outcomes and a vicious cycle ensues.

Fortunately, much can be done on the part of CSR professionals and leaders within corporate foundations to overcome these barriers.  Mission Measurement’s experience in working with dozens of organizations tells us that the most effective leaders in this field are those who:

• Recognize that the business is not going to “get it.”   In fact, it’s not their job to get it; it’s their job to run a successful business thereby enabling social investments along the way.  Instead, it is the job of those leading corporate affairs, corporate community involvement, corporate giving, etc. to make your work relevant to the business.

• Speak the language.  Making social change relevant to business leaders requires a common language.  This means understanding how the business defines success for itself and what its critical priorities are in terms of business units, customer groups, etc.  This also means introducing a sufficient level of experience-based business acumen into your work, often best done through “bilingual” staff members.

• Leverage the business at its core.  With a clear sense of business priorities, CSR professionals can now take advantage of areas of shared interest, making use of your corporate counterparts’ expertise, buying power, partnerships, distribution chains, access to customers and so forth.  Good corporate philanthropists leverage obvious business assets by, for example, garnering in-kind donations. Great corporate philanthropists identify the business’ unique strengths – whether material, intellectual, competitive or otherwise – to develop truly innovated social solutions that can be fully integrated with the business.

• Deliver results that matter.  No different than any other business unit, CSR professionals and corporate philanthropists must demonstrate results that resonate with the business.  Rather than buckling under the pressure of near- impossible-to-achieve results like increased revenues, focus on intermediate outcomes that social investments can contribute to directly and that are relevant to the business.  These include increasing brand awareness among a specific customer group, reducing cost in a specific business unit or incrementally improving corporate reputation along a specific dimension.

Adopting these best practices will transform the role of any corporate philanthropist, produce more significant social change that is also valued by the business and begin a virtuous cycle of more powerful results.