2Sustain

Even during the economic crisis, most businesses have continued with their community involvement efforts as part of their long-term commitments to CSR initiatives, according to new research from the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship.

The Boston College Center surveyed more than 300 North American companies in a variety of industries, and then compiled the results in the newly released report, “Staying the Course — The 2009 Community Involvement Index.”

Here are a few key findings:

• More than one-third of the companies polled (37.8 percent) cut their community involvement budget, but only 20.9 percent decreased staffing. The vast majority of survey respondents (62.1 percent) maintained or even increased budget levels.

• The survey data also revealed that strategic intent has emerged as a well-established guiding principle for most programs –however, businesses continue to struggle with the challenge of demonstrating measurable social impact from their initiatives in the communities where they operate. Companies  in the poll tend to evaluate strategy (41 percent) more than business benefits (27.3 percent) or social impacts (25.4 percent).

• Among other issues of concern, businesses in the survey ranked education as most critical, followed by environmental issues, economic development, health care and job training. Interestingly, these results  reflect that businesses are becomingly increasingly concerned with environmental issues, as is the general public. In the 2005 Community Involvement Index, environmental issues ranked only seventh among issues of concern to companies.

• More than 80 percent of respondents believe that their companies’ community involvement initiatives deliver value to both society and their businesses. However, ironically, more than one -quarter (28.6 percent) say their companies are indifferent to, or have little respect for, those same programs. (Another result speaking to the elusive ROI of these particular CSR efforts.)

For more details, see a summary of the study findings, available here. Also, take a look at earlier posts for information about new community involvement initiatives at The Home Depot and Kraft Foods, IGA, American Express, and Xerox Corporation.