I have been looking for elegant ways to address the "Society" bottom line, especially initiatives aimed at improving the interface between organizations and the society. I am sure that there are many initiatives, for example, under 8a/8b of the businesse excellence models based on EFQM adopted by companies. I am looking for initiatives that go beyond philanthropy and Bottom of the Pyramid (Hart & Prahalad) concepts. I believe that many members of the Elsmar Cove Forum have something to contribute on this subject; I would like to invite you with your views/info. Thanks for your views.

With best regards,

Ramakrishnan

I have been looking for elegant ways to address the "Society" bottom line, especially initiatives aimed at improving the interface between organizations and the society. I am sure that there are many initiatives, for example, under 8a/8b of the businesse excellence models based on EFQM adopted by companies. I am looking for initiatives that go beyond philanthropy and Bottom of the Pyramid (Hart & Prahalad) concepts. I believe that many members of the Elsmar Cove Forum have something to contribute on this subject; I would like to invite you with your views/info. Thanks for your views.

With best regards,

RamakrishnanDr. Ramakrishnan, this is such a controversial, but at the same time, fascinating topic. I believe that there are hundreds of competing initiatives, programs, entities around the World trying to "define" and protocol-dress "Social responsibility". ISO themselves being one of the latest organizations trying to get a piece of this pie, through their SR work and ISO 26000. We have a thread going on the ISO 26000 guidance document. I invite you to read it, in case you have not done so yet. Just like you, I would like to have a chance to exchange ideas on this subject, here at the Cove and elsewhere.

Thanks for bringing this up.

Hello Dr. Ramakrishnan,

Social responsibility has been a core value within the Baldrige Quality Award for some time now. See about the core value and how it contributes to the system here: http://www.baldrige21.com/BALDRIGE%20CRITERIA-ALL%20YEARS/06%20Item%207.6.html

I also found a nice document on the subject here: cleanerproduction.com/Pubs/pubs/Hamner%20-%20Market%20CSR%20Indicators%20and%20Quality%20Systems.doc

I hope this is what you hoped for.

Dr. Ramakrishnan, this is such a controversial, but at the same time, fascinating topic. I believe that there are hundreds of competing initiatives, programs, entities around the World trying to "define" and protocol-dress "Social responsibility". ISO themselves being one of the latest organizations trying to get a piece of this pie, through their SR work and ISO 26000. We have a thread going on the ISO 26000 guidance document. I invite you to read it, in case you have not done so yet. Just like you, I would like to have a chance to exchange ideas on this subject, here at the Cove and elsewhere.

Thanks for bringing this up.
Dear Mr. Vianna,

Thank you for your response. I have indeed visited the ISO 26000 forum a few times in 2005 and have also gone through the other related threads today. Probably I have not made my request clear in my posting; what I need are examples of how the Society interface is addressed by various organizations. Many organizations are comfortable with Philanthropy (or strategic philanthropy (Michael Porter)); for example we have programmes providing health-care for expectant mothers and after delivery, their new born babies near Kolkata - we have adopted these poor and underprivileged women and their new born babies for a specific period so that their health is taken care of. This is a case of pure philanthropy without expecting something back. We too have a programme for providing medical diagnostic facilities in villages on a sustainable basis through a distant health-care programme where the user has to pay for the facility; but he saves on time to travel to the nearby city and losing his daily earning (this is a BOP project similar to what Hart & Prahalad have been talking about). There are initiatives like donation of blood by employees voluntarily to, say, Red Cross. Another approach I know of is that of Procter and Gamble, which uses Cause linked marketing to raise money for, say, providing vision to blind children. I know of another case where an organization started a movement to reclaim "dead" lakes and ponds in their city which solved the water problem of the city. I am looking for examples such as this; I am sure many such initiatives have been taken by organizations to reach the society. While I agree with you on the controversial nature of the standard on the subject, I am sure all will support such initiatives, standards or no standards.

With best regards,

Ramakrishnan

Hello Dr. Ramakrishnan,

Social responsibility has been a core value within the Baldrige Quality Award for some time now. See about the core value and how it contributes to the system here: http://www.baldrige21.com/BALDRIGE%20CRITERIA-ALL%20YEARS/06%20Item%207.6.html

I also found a nice document on the subject here: cleanerproduction.com/Pubs/pubs/Hamner%20-%20Market%20CSR%20Indicators%20and%20Quality%20Systems.doc

I hope this is what you hoped for.

Dear Jennifer,

Thank you for your response. As explained in my earlier posting, I am looking for examples of how organizations are addressing the Societal interface; of course standards may help us to systematically address the issues arising at the Society interface. I am thankful to you for the reference to the article: Integrating Market-Based Sustainability Indicators and Performance Management Systems by Burton Hamner. This paper provides a a good summary of the state of affairs on the subject matter and brings out models that many excellent companies follow.

With best regards,

Ramakrishnan

Dear Jennifer,

Thank you for your response. As explained in my earlier posting, I am looking for examples of how organizations are addressing the Societal interface; of course standards may help us to systematically address the issues arising at the Society interface. I am thankful to you for the reference to the article: Integrating Market-Based Sustainability Indicators and Performance Management Systems by Burton Hamner. This paper provides a a good summary of the state of affairs on the subject matter and brings out models that many excellent companies follow.

With best regards,

RamakrishnanI suspected I was missing the mark. So, I encourage you to research Baldrige Award winners listed here http://www.quality.nist.gov/Award_Recipients.htm for specifics on their accomplishment.

You can look at their award summaries (see here: http://www.quality.nist.gov/Contacts_Profiles.htm) and may choose to contact them personally for details. You may get a good response. My understanding of the Award program is that recipients are more or less obligated to share their stories to help other organizations in their journeys.

I also encourage you to examine the Results sections (Section 7) if you look at the summaries. You may find examples of declared measurable benefits of social responsibility.

I hope this helps!

I suspected I was missing the mark. So, I encourage you to research Baldrige Award winners listed here http://www.quality.nist.gov/Award_Recipients.htm for specifics on their accomplishment.

You can look at their award summaries (see here: http://www.quality.nist.gov/Contacts_Profiles.htm) and may choose to contact them personally for details. You may get a good response. My understanding of the Award program is that recipients are more or less obligated to share their stories to help other organizations in their journeys.

I also encourage you to examine the Results sections (Section 7) if you look at the summaries. You may find examples of declared measurable benefits of social responsibility.

I hope this helps!

Thank you Jennifer for the lead...I think that these summaries will give me a few examples I am looking for. With kind regards, Ramakrishnan

An interesting spin would be to look at successful companies that do not have any social responsibility. I doubt you would find many as here in the USA, social responsbility costs are part of the "marketing" expense. Very few organizations look at the greater good, but rather at the bottom line impact of such an investment.

One of the things our company does that could be part of social responsibility is we periodically have people volunteer, on company time, to adopt a one mile section of a highway near our plant. The volunteer crews go out and pick up all trash on both sides of the highway and bag it for pick up by the highway department for disposal.

A couple examples:

Several local businesses have participated in a program called "Adopt a School". Not only do they give money to a specific school for special projects, but also donate employee time to work in the classrooms.

I've worked for several businesses who adopt a family through the Salvation Army at the holidays. Employees buy gifts and the companies buy food. These same companies also did the Adopt a Highway program that Ralph mentioned.

There are numerous mentoring programs for high shool kids supported by local companies, either through the schools or through a local program called The Learning Web.

My current company has donated unused space to local Not-for-Profits like the Science Center, as storage space.

Another great program many companies have is a "matching grant" program. If you have a special charity or not-for-profit organization that you donate funds to, they will match your money.

There are lots of small things like these that businesses do to reach out and support their comunities.:applause:

Messrs. Steven, Ralphsulser and Rosie A, thank you all for the information. With best regards, Ram

We have a corporate-mandated metric to be actively involved in at least 4 community events. Ironically, my site was already doing this prior to the corporate edict. :rolleyes: Some are minor activities and others require a lot of personal time and dedication:

Tree-planting at schools
Young Business Leaders (a mentoring program to teach youth about the in's and out's of business)
Habitat for Humanity (building homes)
Rune for the Cure (5km run for cancer research)
Dragonboat team (donations raised go to the groups selected by the city)
Adopt-a-Road
Road clean-up (twice a year, employees and their families take time to clean up our adopted road)
Various local charities (sponsored by internal employee initiatives)
Adopt-a-family (sponsoring a family both locally and one from our New Orleans operation who lost everything)


Social responsibility - for us - goes beyond a mere company cash donation most of the time. It's about active involvement in the community from employees of all levels, too.

I am not saying companies just give cash, but the costs to a company for any societial project is done with the idea of positive PR.

Let me give you an example of a company I worked for. We were a chemical company with big pipes and smoke coming out of them 24/7. Obviously, the neighbors would be concerned. The company invested in their people to be out in the community to interact and take part in social causes. Why? So when people asked about what was coming out of the stack, we can say 98%was water vapor.

Understanding that positive press is important to help hire employees, retain employees and to keep picketing to a minimum.

I can name many industries where this is important. Take pharmaceutical companies and animal testing. Healthcare with denying claims, etc. Corporate Social responsibility has a positive ROI for companies, otherwsie they would not do it.

One of the international SR initiatives gaining momentum and gathering some heavy hitter subscribers is the UN Global Compact. (http://www.unglobalcompact.org/)

Their Ten Principles are available through this link. (http://www.unglobalcompact.org/AboutTheGC/TheTenPrinciples/index.html)

Thanks, as always, Sidney for keeping us up to date on this topic. I continue to feel strongly that this is a good and necessary direction for companies to follow, despite the drawbacks that others have mentioned here on the Cove.

Our ASQ section is devoting a dinner meeting to this topic in a few weeks, and I'm interested in hearing feedback from others on this topic.

Our company encourages and assists employees in a large number of "social and cultural stewardship" projects. The company itself often provides monetary donations to most fundraisers and then it helps us, as employees, to organize and fund a number of other projects. Here are some of the things we support:
Relay for life (American Cancer Society)
Red Cross, both monetary during emergencies and blood drives
a partnership with our public school system to improve the quality of education
environmental projects working with boy scouts and other youth organizations
most youth (and other non-profit) fundraising things like dinners - the company buys twenty tickets and distributes them and employees then have a free ticket and buy how many others are needed for his/her family
recycling education programs, both on-site, and education in the school system
providing Christmas presents to underpriveled or disadvantaged children
providing turkeys (cooked) to our local service for the elderly
adopt - a - highway
earthday recycling center (citizens drop off their appliances and metal scrap)
a scholarship program for children of all employees
employees can contribute into a fund for fellow employees who are undergoing some sort of hardship

I really cannot think of everything right now that we do as employees that the company also chips in on or helps us organize but the list is pretty indicative of the spirit of sharing that embodies our team.

I work here in the U.S. and see a lot of external SRI's occurring such as volunteering, blood donations (drives), and public educational seminars. Which is good, however, I there is, what I believe, to be a trend in U.S. companies going away from supporting collective bargaining. Which I gladly see it appearing over and over again in such standards as the SA8000 and the 10 principles link Sidney supplied. It currently has achieved "don't ask, don't tell" status, much to my chagrin. I hope that the international business community applies as much pressure on U.S. companies to comply to a social standard just as much as they push the ISO 9001:2000 standard. :D

In my community (and many other similar communities) there is a charitable organization called United Way. Each year they conduct a fund raising drive that is supported by most large businesses in the city. Local committees seek donations directly from employees and many companies match and/or contribute to the campaign. There is a tremendous amount of community support for the intiative as well as publicity, etents, etc. You can learn more at http://www.weareunited.com/ecom.asp?pg=campaign

Funds raised are apportioned to various United Way member organizations which work with youth, disabled persons, seniors and other groups. Companies that participate do not derive any direct, bottom line benefit - they do get positive publicity and the sence of community outreach/participation.

Hope this helps.