Anita: yep, and its not an easy choice.. the first thought is that if it were all seamless, would there be accountability and ROI or would it become irrelevant?

Geet: hmm, maybe its semantics, but i’d use approach instead of strategy 🙂 so, optimising may not, for example, be eco friendly, so you’d need to make a choice… excellent excellent points in the next two paras, and thanks to you, i remembered something i wrote on the subject earlier!! using philips as an example http://bit.ly/anGhuv the thought though, is, if, while doing these, the organisation’s basic business practices aren’t really ‘socially responsible’, then this would be a waste… meanwhile, thanks for ‘butting in’, the very idea of Twitter is to promote, exactly this 😀

bips: so perhaps when aircel put in this kind of money into the project, they perhaps also had deliverables in mind.. and if this is indeed a version of csr, then this kind of accountability is what worries me…

aircel is more of a marketing gimmick than csr. what the campaign did was say that the company stands for tiger conservation and it also put aircel in everybody’s mind. from being a nobody, suddenly its been talked about across the country.

if they had put the adspends into projects/ngos working for tiger conservation, then it would have been real-time csr

I will add that CSR does not really need to have budget if CSR is the way you plan your strategy. That implies that the strategy of the company is responsible itself. E.g: If you optimize the supply chain, it will actually save you money than cost you money and no CSR money will be required only CSR thinking / strategizing will be required.

Again, Carbon Offsets is another example where you are investing something and you are getting returns for it. (you could also get these returns by paying for them, and not really improving anything.)

Philanthropy could be a part of CSR when we talk about employee volunteering or Pro Bono work, but if you look at it from a different angle, its actually employee engagement. You are engaging your employees and they will be more tuned in with the work they do.

Initiatives where companies provide education, target bottom of the pyramid, create a white space.. are all examples of future markets that these companies could have. And according to me, thinking of the bottom-line is perfectly fine since a company also has a responsibility to its employees and shareholders. Doing Good while Making / Saving Money should be the way companies should look at CSR and they will make a mark.

Cause Branding is something that happens a lot in the US and research (Gartner or McKinsey i thnk) has shown that it really gets you no where in terms of sales. It might get your name out there, but if the customer is not buying your product but knows your name, it might not be a successful strategy.

I enjoyed your post and discuss and apologize for butting in the Twitter Chat 🙂

roshni’s ‘hey we did charity’ applies more to cheque book philanthropy – philantrophy for the word play addict in you :)- or tokenism/masking in the form of campaigns like save the tiger that appear non-serious if not sustained. the cynicism (eyewash) which you express (and whatever discussion i had with you was on the premise that the corporate would have a serious csr commitment) can well apply even to the pepsi or aircel project. i believe a csr program becomes more sustainable when it is linked to their business. companies will suddenly see business sense in csr and i see nothing wrong in it, if their intent and commitment to the cause is serious. a sustainable campaign is also what would eventually make a real difference. let’s also accept companies exist to make profits and there is no need for them to be seen as NGOs. they have stakeholders and investors to answer as well.

the way i look at it, all csr funds need not be put in one single cause. if the company is large enough, they can engage in csr programs both from the business and consumer point of view. there’s no reason why a b2b/ b2c approach cannot be adopted. while the b2b approach can aid business growth while supporting a cause (if a retail giant were to work in the area of farmer empowerment and also buy produce directly from them), the b2c approach can be either linked to business ( ‘drink responsibly’ by alcohol companies) or consumers (say, a music label undertaking a clean and green campus programme). the eventual aim of these programs would be to generate goodwill, build brand, sustainable development and yes, increase sales.