5 Ways to Integrate Authentic Social Responsibility Practices into Your Brand

By: Kayleigh Ventrone 

Social responsibility is becoming more important to stakeholders, and many brands are interested in creating their own social responsibility programs. Adobe, is giving employees time off to serve their communities, HP offers a teacher mentoring program, and Lego is eliminating single-use plastic in their packaging. There’s no right way to enact social responsibility, but it is very easy to develop a responsibility program that lacks authenticity. If the brand does not take the necessary steps to commit to their promises, they may find themselves damaging key stakeholder relationships. Utilize these five tips to ensure that your brand is using social responsibility for the right reasons. 

Make sure your words match your actions 

Building a relationship with your key stakeholders requires that your brand lives up to their values. It’s no longer enough for a brand to proclaim that they support a cause. They must take action to support this cause year-round. If they don’t take action to commit to their values, they will not be able to build quality relationships or create an impact. How are stakeholders supposed to believe in the brand’s values if the brand does not commit to the values? 

Ways to implement your brand values: 

  •  Set measurable objectives to ensure that your actions are making an impact. Reevaluate your impact constantly. 
  •  Conduct frequent company-wide training sessions on the values of the company, for example, if your brand values diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), host DEI trainings.
  • Look at your values statement and determine if your actions align with the statement. 

Always remain transparent

 In order to build authentic social responsibility programs, your brand must remain transparent about their actions. In turn, this will strengthen stakeholder relationships, increase impact, limit the risk of crises, and can even increase profits. When looking for a brand to support, stakeholders want to turn to brands that consistently maintain a strong reputation. 

Ways to implement transparency:

  • Be clear in your brand communications. 
  •  Never, ever lie.
  • Make your social responsibility actions and impact clear on your website

Develop a strong company culture 

While social responsibility tends to revolve around external communications, it is imperative to ensure that your brand has strong internal communication to maintain authentic responsibility. When your employees believe in your responsibility programs, your customers will believe in the program. It is key to develop a culture rooted in the brand’s values so that employees know that they are working towards a higher purpose. Employees whose values match the culture, ensure that any social responsibility acts are done out of genuine care for the community, not just because it’s something they need to implement to make the company look better. 

Ways to implement a strong company culture: 

  • Give employees time off to volunteer for a charity that they care about. 
  • Prioritize the mental health of employees. 
  • Create a space where employees can express their thoughts, feelings, and concerns.

Create strong connections with your community 

While all of these tips can help build relationships with key stakeholders, it can be particularly difficult to connect with the larger community. Customers want to support brands that align with their values. Implementing a strong social responsibility program that directly benefits the community will help build authentic, loyal relationships among community stakeholders. 

Ways to build strong community connections 

  •  Listen to what the community needs. Invite them to voice what matters most to them. 
  • Make your brand visible in the community; invite employees and executive suite members to volunteer time at a local nonprofit. 
  • Support community programs and schools with grants.

Lead by example 

In the end, if a company’s leadership does not care about the brand’s values or social responsibility actions, no one else will. All leadership needs to embody the values of the company. If the CEO of the company says that the company values sustainability, but the CEO does not implement any sustainability efforts into the company and actively does not make efforts to live sustainably, the brand will not be perceived as sustainable. 

Ways to lead by example: 

  • Leave your office to have conversations with employees and the community directly to gain a deep understanding of what they truly want. 
  • Make sure you live by the company values. 
  • Do more than just talk about the brand’s values, prioritize the allocation of resources for social responsibility plans. 

Whether you’re trying to launch your next social responsibility campaign or are trying to integrate new practices to enhance company culture, all stakeholders benefit from authentic social responsibility. You may even find that authentic social responsibility creates stronger stakeholder relationships, improves the community, reduces the risk of crises, and increases profit. Ultimately, centering humans at the heart of your brand can improve the brand in all facets.

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