Grow Your CSR Program With Tools You Already Have (Part 1) - WeSpire: Weekly #8

WELCOME!

WeSpire: Weekly is where ESG & CSR pros get better at social impact, sustainability, wellbeing, and DEI in less than 5 minutes every Wednesday.

This is the 8th installment of?WeSpire: Weekly but the first one we have posted here on LinkedIn.

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Every CSR & ESG professional is asked to do more with less in 2022.

So in the next three editions of WeSpire: Weekly, we are exploring 12 tools that you (probably) already have that can improve your program’s awareness, participation, and reporting.

In Part 1 we get into 4 Comms tools and how to use them to grow awareness & engagement:

1. LinkedIn
2. Internal Newsletters
3. New Employee Orientation
4. Corporate Town Halls

LinkedIn

The most obvious way to use LinkedIn to communicate your CSR & ESG programs on LinkedIn is through posting progress and achievements that align with company values and ESG goals.?

But there are several other tools within the platform that can help grow communication both internally and publicly.

Use the ‘Recommend to employees’ feature to highlight milestones internally and enable employees to quickly share wins that are relevant to them.

Setting up this content is easy:

1. Log onto LinkedIn as an Admin (ask your marketing team for help getting these permissions)
2. Click the ‘Content’ dropdown and ‘Recommend to employees’
3. Click the textbox & write your content
4. Click ‘Recommend’

Employees can easily share this content with their network by:

1. going directly to your company's LinkedIn page,?
2. clicking ‘My Company’,?
3. selecting the post they want to share
4. adding their own thoughts and tone
5. Clicking ‘post’

At WeSpire we also recommend sharing new recommendations on Slack/Teams or internal newsletters.

Internal Newsletters

Many CSR- & ESG-minded companies use recurring newsletters to build an internal community.

If your company is one of these there are two tactics we recommend to take advantage of the built-in audience: 1) dedicated sections with each edition and 2) takeovers

A dedicated section within each newsletter is a great way to build interest and awareness of ongoing programs.?

A simple graphic showing the progress of your personal grant account allocation campaign and a call to action is easy to build on Canva and doesn't take too much space away from internal comms.

For example, try something like this:

Newsletter takeovers are another great tactic to get major events or achievements in front of the whole company.?

If your internal comms team is willing to lend their newsletter platform to you, make sure you maximize its impact.

Here are three must-haves to include in this takeover:

1. A specific goal. Are you trying to drive donation matching, sign up volunteers, communicate metrics and milestones, or something else?
2. A clear ‘Call To Action’ like “Donate now”, “Sign up today”, “Read the report”.
3. A tie-back to the passions of your people and your company’s CSR/ESG goals. Directly state how the actions employees take help their communities.

New Employee Orientation

Most organizations have clear timelines and checklists that each new hire must complete to be fully onboarded. This is an opportunity that A LOT of CSR pros are missing that could be the most simple way to grow awareness.?

Work with your new-hire teams to incorporate CSR program signup and activation.

Here are three examples of clear tasks that will immediately engage new employees in social responsibility programs (if you have WeSpire they can do them all in one place):

1. Sign onto your WeSpire account & choose your non-profit for eligible donation matching
2. View the list of ERGs on your WeSpire account and email [email protected] to learn more or opt into the groups of your choice.
3. View the sustainability checklist on your WeSpire account and mark off at least one task to get the ball rolling.

Each of these tasks take just seconds to complete and will get new hires on the path to CSR engagement.

Company Town Halls

Depending upon the size of your company you may have town halls as often as weekly or as little as annually.

At WeSpire our Town Halls are bi-weekly and we always have at least one deep dive on a specific subject. During these deep dives everyone can learn about the work going on in other departments and how it relates to the overall mission.

This is no different when it comes to corporate social responsibility efforts. Work with your internal comms team to develop a deep-dive for your next town hall on a specific program within sustainability, giving, wellbeing, or DE&I.

A few question to consider when giving a deep dive:

1. How are the goals and milestones I am reporting on relevant to the overall mission of the company?
2. Will people completely unfamiliar with CSR or ESG understand what we are telling them?
3. What story am I trying to tell and what emotion should it elicit?

Your town hall deep dive is an opportunity to elevate your efforts among peers, coworkers, and major company stakeholders (including investors and C-Suite!).

What commonly held tools are you using to grow your programs?

Share with us how your team is driving awareness and engagement using existing tool sets or if you are finding it difficult to work within the tools you currently have.?

You are invited to the second session of?WeSpire: Live! on August, 23rd at Noon EST. If you like this newsletter you will love this monthly live series!

The first session was a?huge?hit among CSR & ESG pros with dozens in attendance to chat with WeSpire CEO & Founder Susan Hunt Stevens & her guest Amy Wendel, Director and Head of Corporate Responsibility & ESG at GoTo.?The recording is available on YouTube!