Navigating Your CSR Strategy in COVID- 19 Times!

Corporate Social Responsibility is the single most important aspect of communications in these COVID-19 times.

These times call for everyone to take responsibility. The impact of the pandemic is immense and there’s an urgent need to offer support. Governments are offering various stimulus packages and private enterprises are supporting in big ways to fight COVID-19.

Over the years, Businesses have revised their approach to CSR, moving from disconnected philanthropic donations to the belief that it can serve as an integrated business strategy. CSR can be linked to business objectives and core competencies, generating business value as well as positive social and/ or environmental impact.

So as a business, the single most important question becomes — How do I implement a CSR strategy?

First thing first, identify the need vs alignment with brand.

A CSR strategy must be authentic to your brand, it must ring true to your brand. In selecting what causes to support, it should be in alignment with brand values, fit your company and its products or services. Focus on the areas your company has developed strengths, research, and knowledge and support. a cause that aligns with that expertise. “CSR can be both a risk mitigation strategy and an opportunity-seeking strategy, and leaders should look for the ‘sweet spot’ within their organizations — that is, the intersection between business and social/environmental returns” Kellie McElhaney, Director at the Center for Responsible Business.

In critical times such as these, a brand must access the current needs of the community and see how it can offer a solution.

There’s no point investing in a CSR program that is not relevant and that your customers/clients do not relate to.

There must be a connection. It’s in doing this, your community will take notice.

• Hotels.ng, an online travel agency specialising in hotel bookings within Nigeria partnered with 10 hotels across the country to provide self isolations centers.
• GIG Mobility, a travel and logistics company donated buses to the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to help support its operations.
• AIR Peace provided its fleet of planes to bring in medical supplies to the country.

These are all perfect examples of how brands are leveraging their core competencies to implement a CSR strategy.

Now you’ve selected a CSR initiative, that aligns with your core competencies and addresses a need, you must communicate.

A lot of brands are currently diverting their marketing budgets previously dedicated to promoting aspects of their brand or new products to their CSR initiatives. It is for this reason amongst others, that communicating your CSR initiatives is essential. A CSR strategy can generate big wins for a brand by positively impacting the community and building brand equity.

As a business, when you fail to embrace the value in communicating your CSR initiatives, this suggests that your business is doing nothing in the area of CSR.

These are unprecedented times. Never in living memory has a crisis affected every company, from every industry, in every location, worldwide. No business has escaped the effects of coronavirus. Now more than ever, brands find themselves under intense scrutiny. The way that they communicate, how they treat their staff, the services that they offer throughout this period of history and how they show their support to the community. As a business you simply cannot stay silent, especially when you are actually investing in initiatives that are benefiting your community.

In these critical times, effective communication of CSR initiatives can strengthen customers/clients’ connection to the brand, increase brand loyalty and brand value.

• GTBank recently handed over a newly constructed 110 bed isolation facility to the Lagos State Government. In addition they put a hold on repayments on SME loans — talk about addressing a need! 👏🏽
• UBA provides a N5 Billion ($14 Million) relief for COVID-19 relief support across Africa.
• First Bank announced a donation of N1bn towards the joint effort by the Nigerian Private Sector Coalition Against COVID-19. This is in addition to the Bank’s drive to provide e- learning solutions to one million children.

These CSR initiatives were supported with a well thought out communications strategy to ensure all key stakeholders were clued in on the firm’s activities.

Communicating a firm’s CSR content, once developed, implemented, and integrated into the organization, can be an innovative and valuable business strategy to reach internal and external stakeholders. Like anything else in business, to be effective, it needs to be done right!

A well thought out communications strategy requires detailed audience and stakeholder mapping amongst other things, however for SMEs needing to deploy a no fuss strategy, here are two simple ways you can communicate your CSR initiatives:

• Issue a press statement and disseminate it across multiple third party platforms — you have to guarantee all your key stakeholders can engage with the content. This can also be a great way to generate positive earned media value- UBA and GTBank gained massive digital shares after their announcements were made.
• Leverage owned channels — your website, social media pages, newsletters etc utilize to communicate your initiatives. Nuts About Cakes, a lagos-based bakery, donated loaves of bread to children and documented it on their Instagram page.

Consumers/clients today are looking to connect with brands they endorse, it’s beyond a transaction. Think of CSR as another component of your strategic communication and messaging management. Perhaps it can even be one of its most important components, especially during these times!

And finally, measure your CSR outcomes. You can’t determine the success of a strategy that has been implemented without measurement.

Measuring activities helps companies make better decisions about which initiatives to support, improve the efficiency of their programs, and access the business value being generated. Developing an organized framework for reporting that links efforts back to business objectives. will inform your stakeholders of how your CSR is impacting your company’s performance. This is extremely essential when CSR becomes the key marketing activity, like with all marketing efforts, measurements must be put in place. Seek to quantify initiatives that are directly tied to the company’s bottom line — for example, activities that drive cost savings, new customer acquisition, brand equity, brand positioning. and brand awareness.

I am an SME, what CSR initiatives can I embrace to ensure I don’t stay silent?

• Volunteer in a community outreach programme
• Offer your services for free or at a discount
• Donate your products — if they’re needed at this time
• Donate funds to a local food bank or outreach programme — there are various of these available

It is a very trying time for all businesses, so it’s important you take your business into consideration and explore what you can do comfortably. Also, don’t be in a hurry to jump in, take your time to figure out a CSR strategy that works best for your brand. It will take the economy sometime to recover from the effects of COVID-19, so there will be various opportunities for CSR. The essential thing is to demonstrate your commitment to your community — and that could be your immediate community like your staff by keeping them on the payroll.

Ijeoma Balogun is a Communications Specialist — Consumer, Lifestyle & Tech with experience in CSR Strategy Implemetion and Brand Building across Mass and Niche markets.