If corporate social responsibility (CSR) is one of your responsibilities, you might pine for guidance in this rapidly evolving business function. You might have questions like, “What foundational principles do I use to make decisions?” or “What policies or programs should I consider?” or “What’s a reasonable target for employee participation in volunteer activities?”

Good news! Our partner organization, Points of Light, asked an esteemed group of CSR experts these questions. Their responses led to The Civic 50 framework, which is reviewed annually and updated as needed. Both The Civic 50 Colorado award program and its national counterpart, The Civic 50 US, are based on the framework. Therefore, in addition to having access to conceptual guidance through the framework, you also have access to performance metrics of US and Colorado award-winning CSR programs on the framework.

So, what does the Civic 50 framework suggest? At a high level, it specifies that strong CSR program have four dimensions:

1. Investment. How extensively and strategically the company applies its resources to community engagement, including employee time and skills, cash, in-kind giving, and leadership.
   
2. Integration. How the company’s community engagement program supports business interests and integrates into business functions, or how it “does well by doing good.” This includes leveraging the CSR program to boost employee engagement and brand marketing, for example.
   
3. Institutionalization. How the company supports community engagement through its institutional policies, systems and incentives, including volunteer time off policies, matching gift grants and board service training.
   
4. Impact. How the company measures the social and business impact of its community engagement program. This includes tracking if the community and the business are better off because of the CSR program.

To dive deeper into these dimensions and the associated metrics from state and national Civic 50 honorees, download the full Civic 50 Colorado 2021 report. You might also wasn’t to sign up for The Civic 50 Colorado mailing list.

When companies donate to nonprofits, it’s usually one of three thing: the products/services they sell, volunteer hours or cash. Pharmaceutical companies donate medicine and law firms donate pro bono legal services – and almost all donate volunteering and money. Businesses, however, are also trove of other assets that can also be repurposed for good. Below are 20 examples.

Donating Items (beyond the company’s commercial products/services)

• Furniture or computers being retired
  
• Waste that can be converted into good (e.g., Caesars Entertainment donates partially used hotel soap to be sterilized and donated to families at high risk of infectious diseases due to poor hygiene)
  
• Marketing, sales or other department-specific competencies
  
• Unused office, warehouse, cargo or other space
  
• Surplus cafeteria food to hunger organizations

Offering Space as a Communications Tool (used for marketing, education, etc.)

• Parking lots (e.g., one automotive shop on a major road offers it to nonprofits to hold fundraising car washes)
  
• Elevator walls, floors, sides of buildings, backs of chairs, bathroom mirrors, cubicle dividers and other building surfaces
  
• Keycards
  
• Presentation cards
  
• Backside of presentation cards
  
• Sides of vehicles
  
• Placemats

Sharing Internal Programs and Processes

• Including nonprofits in bargaining with vendors to help (for example, Timberland includes its key nonprofit partners in its negotiations with telecommunication and health insurance firms to secure lower prices for them)
  
• Offering unfilled training spots to nonprofit staff or others (Aetna)
  
• Making internal management tools available to nonprofits, such as a job candidate interview template or a meeting facilitation guide (IBM)
  
• Extending internal mentoring programs to external individuals, such as nonprofit staff or first-generation college students (Timberland)

Shifting Operations

• Renting office, retail, manufacturing space in marginalized areas to support their economic growth
  
• Reducing carbon footprint, plastic production and solid waste
  
• Hosting beehives (that employee volunteers can manage) to help counter colony collapse disorder
  
• Giving better shelf space to minority-owned brands

You get the idea. There are an infinite number of novel contributions companies can make to charitable causes! What might your business contribute?