The following excerpt is taken from an article by Jason Saul and Cheryl Davenport currently featured on CRO Magazine's website and to be published in the October print edition.

Marketers get it. Tylenol is not headache medicine, it’s a pain reliever. IBM doesn’t manufacturer computers, it provides solutions. Facebook doesn’t post pictures, it connects people. And Walmart no longer guarantees low prices, but rather promises a better life. These and many other companies give us what we want: It’s not about products, not services, not programs, or widgets. It’s about results. And chances are, if you are a corporate responsibility officer of any sort, that’s what your CEO, your investors, your customers, and your consumers want too.

A New Sense of Urgency
The demand for results is not new, but it is more palpable now than ever, and not just because of the economic downturn. The real exigency for results is not so much about accountability (most corporate investments in CR are relatively modest). Rather, the real driver is value creation. We aren’t just going through an economic downturn; we’re going through a social and environmental downturn. From resource depletion to healthcare to education to hunger, social issues are becoming business issues. The public is raising its expectations of corporations: not just to make things less worse, but to solve social problems. And therein lies an unprecedented business opportunity: to create social and economic value that translates into real, tangible shareholder value. Indeed, in a poll published in The McKinsely Quarterly in 2009, 56 percent of investment professionals and CFOs, when asked, said they believe that “CSR improves shareholder value.” Now here’s the shocker: 53 percent of CSR professionals answered a shoulder-shrugging “I don’t know.” That’s a problem.

In light of this heightened demand, many corporations are wildly chasing the elusive measurement rabbit around the track: “If only I could figure out the right metric. Maybe this web-based, software ROI calculator will be the answer. Or, maybe it’s in a workshop or maybe this new academic research project. . . .” There are an endless stream of new measurement methodologies and frameworks, but the answer isn’t out there. The answer lies within your organization. Here’s what we’ve learned from helping dozens of Fortune 500 companies measure their CR impact (read more):