Corporate Funders Group Recap: Corporate Social Responsibility Trends with the Association of Corporate Citizenship Professionals
Last month, Philanthropy Northwest welcomed Christina Fagan, vice president of content and learning at the Association of Corporate Citizenship Professionals (ACCP), to join our Corporate Funders Group’s Lunch and Learn to discuss the current corporate social impact landscape and corporate social responsibility (CSR) sector trends, including how companies are adapting in today’s rapidly shifting environment.
The Current CSR Landscape
In her presentation “CSR Under Pressure: How Companies are Adapting in Today’s Environment,” Christina provided a high-level overview of the current CSR landscape based on ACCP field data, a space impacted by political shifts and regulatory pressures, economic uncertainty and changes in giving priorities.
Tariffs, tax changes and several other factors have created economic uncertainty for many companies because of how these changes could influence their budgets. Christina says companies are looking at alternatives for how they support their charitable work and the budgets for operations, grantmaking and foundations have remained the same or decreased.
The most apparent changes have been where corporations have chosen to give their money. Environmental/Sustainability is often the top area of corporate giving, but it dropped to the fourth spot in ACCP’s survey. Instead, healthcare, STEM education, community revitalization and disaster relief claimed the top four spots for most funded areas of giving.
Considering Risks
CSR teams’ risk management has primarily fallen into three categories: reputational, operational and strategic. Christina described several risk mitigation tactics CSR teams can use to navigate the perception of risk in the current landscape, including using purposeful language when discussing philanthropic work. Today’s rapidly shifting environment has altered how companies approach diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) work and the language they use to describe this work, with many organizations using terms like culture and belonging to describe diversity initiatives.
The biggest source of comfort is that the number of companies abandoning their DEI work is relatively low.
Christina
Christina also noted that several ACCP members are considering having conversations with organizations that use more explicit language to describe their efforts and what those conversations could look like in the future.
“Create a framework with a low, medium or high level of risk. If it’s high, are there conversations you can have with the nonprofit? This doesn’t mean a company will abandon the partnership; it’s more about what the conversation opens up and assessing if there’s a willingness to have that conversation.”
We also heard other risk mitigation tactics, like adopting a dynamic and agile strategy or focusing on efforts that are intended to benefit one community but are used and appreciated by other groups. Christina encouraged attendees to use public positioning, business-aligned impact, and enterprise-wide alignment and integration to navigate the current environment.
Making the Case for CSR
Making the case for CSR hasn’t changed over the last two to three years based on in-the-field data from ACCP. CSR helps companies recruit and retain top talent with 87% of employees considering “workplace volunteer opportunities a factor in their decision to stay with their current employer or pursue a new one.” Studies have also found that CSR drives better financial performance and builds a better reputation and public trust that can mitigate risk.
Christina described how these points can be tailored to defend CSR teams’ work, explaining that knowing the statistics isn’t enough. Understanding how and when to use them is important, especially as teams face potential budget cuts.
Despite the current climate and regulations put in place by the administration, an ACCP poll this year revealed many corporations' plans to maintain or increase their commitments.
To support practitioners in communicating value, ACCP recently released the Making the Case for Corporate Social Impact Toolkit. This resource equips CSR teams with curated, easy-to-use data points drawn from the most reputable and influential studies of recent years. The toolkit highlights the business benefits of corporate social impact — including employee recruitment and retention, financial advantage and increased brand loyalty and trust — helping teams clearly demonstrate the long-term value of their work to executives and key stakeholders.
What’s Next?
To wrap up, Christina walked our corporate attendees through practical next steps to set their companies and teams up for success. She advised refreshing old language where needed, conducting a cross-functional audit, assembling data and contacting nonprofits to assess their needs.
The future is uncertain, and the CSR landscape is sure to change again. The strategies and tactics we develop today are what will set us up for a better tomorrow.
Learn more about ACCP here.
