Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as an instrument of positive social change – the REACHA approach.
What is CSR?
· Corporates fulfilling their social commitment seriously and conscientiously.
· Exploring the ‘felt need’ in the community in the physical domain of their functioning, to start with. This ‘felt need’ may or may not be related to the products and services that they specialize in. If the ‘felt need’ is related to their specialization, the work becomes so much easier.
· Exploring possibilities for partnerships with ongoing/possible works at the grass-roots’ level, with government organizations, voluntary organizations/NGOs etc.
The importance of these partnerships is critical. A three-way partnership is ideal:
· Government – the face of a Welfare Democracy, and representing peoples’ aspirations.
· Local grass-roots’ Voluntary Organisations/NGOs – involved in ground level work; experts in the nuts and bolts of Social Dynamics and possessing the experience in knowing what ‘works’ at this level.
· Conscientious Corporates eager to enrich the society where they work, and from which they generate their profits.
Corporate Volunteering should be an integral part of CSR. This encourages executives in corporates to take that extra step to ‘reach out’ to the community.
· Corporates can use this volunteering to assess the skills of their employees for other official assignments.
· Many corporates may also take this volunteering as an input for the overall assessment of their employees. Thus, an element of incentives can be built into the concept of CSR.
Corporates should have a separate department for CSR. This should be manned by experts from:
· Human Resources.
· Corporate Communications.
· Qualified/experienced social workers/MSW.
· Technical experts with a bent of mind for social work.
Each corporate should have a CSR MISSION/POLICY just like it has a MISSION STATEMENT and a VISION. This CSR MISSION/POLICY should be drafted after a thorough assessment of the environment in which the company works:
· Its employees, customers and clients.
· Their families and neighbourhood.
· The socio-cultural environment.
· The ‘felt need’ in this environment.
· Ecological/environmental concerns.
· Political situation prevailing.
· Points of convergence with its MISSION STATEMENT and the VISION behind its functioning.
The CSR MISSION/POLICY should work upon:
· Identification of societal ‘felt needs’ that require intervention.
· Possibilities for Public-Private-Government Partnerships.
· Broad programme/project design guidelines.
· Methodologies for talent identification in the community.
· Leads for corporate R&D in the direction of these ‘felt needs.’
· Financial implications.
· Campaign, communication and presentation methodologies – Information, Education and Communication (IEC).
· Community feedback analysis.
· Result mapping.
· Future projections.
· Inter-departmental synergy modules – HR/CC/CSR – to streamline CSR initiatives.
A successful CSR model is up and running in North Delhi.
What IITs/Engg/IIM/MBA/Univ Colleges/institutes can do wrt CSR/BBN?
· Colleges/institutes must make a serious effort in this direction by training the future professionals/managers in effective dynamics of CSR. A separate course/deptt on CSR can be a major contributor.
· Youth campus societies need to be started/galvanized that can sow the seeds of CITIZENSHIP in each of the budding professionals/managers, and also identify some of the young, dynamic faculty that teaches in these campuses, to take the lead.
· These societies need to initiate VOLUNTEER INTERNSHIPS for its members, whereby the students get associated with ongoing grass-roots’ work in the vicinity (govt / NGO / Corporate) that are engaged in fulfilling some ‘felt need.’
· These VOLUNTEER INTERNSHIPS should be linked with the project/assignment works of the students, and grades/marks could be awarded after assessment of the level of commitment shown by the interns during their volunteering.
· The host NGO/govt organization/corporate can also be requested to give certificates to genuine internship efforts. These would be of immense help to the students during campus recruitments.
· Such youth bodies need to be networked nationally through a federal, flexible structure in tune with the ‘open source’ philosophy that drives the spread of the LINUX OS and the www.wikipedia.org model of free encyclopedias. This networking will promote inter-sharing and growth.
· The www.bharatbandhu.net is one such humble effort. Many better ones may be on.
· Each center of higher learning needs to sensitise its Alumni Association to provide backward (with those who are the present students), forward (with those employed in corporates, and possessing a desire to ‘reach out’) and lateral (with ongoing NGO/Govt/corporate CSR work in the vicinity) linkages to ensure CONTINUITY.
National level workshops/symposia need to be organized in regard to the above concepts.
