SmartSimple Blog

Collaborative blog post written by Alex Wong, SmartSimple’s Director of Marketing, and America’s Charities

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has shaped the way that corporations have engaged with communities. As it’s evolved, CSR has gone through a fundamental shift in how it operates in light of new global initiatives, most notably, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). So what does this shift look like?

About 84% of companies view volunteer opportunities as an important way to engage employees. Yet 1/3 of employees don’t give through their workplace giving programs because they’re not able to choose causes that matter to them.

With the record-setting rate of refugees and forcibly-displaced communities seeking housing and care during their relocation into their new country, an increasing number of global corporations are stepping up to address this issue through their corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts. One of the most effective forms of assistance has been through community-driven volunteer programs because they provide consistent support to a cause while engaging volunteers with transformative experiences.

In a recent study from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), in 2015, natural disasters cost over $1 trillion in economic damage, and this number is expected to rise with more frequent climate-related events. On the positive end, the philanthropic response has now come from enterprise entities, however, this has brought on challenges. Most companies’ disaster relief campaigns only have minimal impact because quick and effective communication is often difficult. This is a real problem because turnaround time is usually short and for a disaster relief campaign to be effective, there needs to be a well-organized, collaborative funding effort to build critical mass.