What is required is a combination of both genuine care & demonstration of corporates getting their hands dirty with developing our immediate communities - this coupled with using a story/project as part of a PR excercise is a good excercise if it is to spread the word to the community and not necessarily your business contacts only.The trend these days are 'what do we get back?' & how do little people with big ideas & hearts give back without the resources.I say: a company should include the project that they are supporting as part of their marketing roll-out so that the initiative that you are supporting gets the necessary exposure which will help a great deal to increase their chances of future sponsorships.

I believe a complete mindshift is necessary on this subject. We have baby boomer leaders with old style mentality and yes for them it is about exposure and cheque handover.
We need a complete new way of dealing with this issue.
Corporate team members need to get their hands dirty and be properly involved. This will bring new benefits to team dynamics and change the mindset.

The notion that CSI is just about development and advertising is misguided.

Numerous studies have shown the direct link between CSI and Corporate Reputation. The World's Most Admired companies survey as conducted by Harris Interactive and the Fortune magazine clearly show that CSI or Corporate Social Responsibility is a driver of reputation. Some studies have shown that reputation can be as much as 40 - 50% of a companies share price.Therefore investment and expenditures in CSI has a definite outcome, if it is used appropriately.

Other studies show that sustainable investment funds outperform normal funds. Thus investment in CSI is about bolstering a company's reputation and ultimately its value.

This does not mean that a company can just invest or spend that money. Stakeholders will want to know what you spend the money on, whether there is a clear strategy and what the impact of the actions were on the communities involved.

It is my opinion that CSI should form part of a clearly defined reputation management strategy. It has a purpose if correctly applied.

In fact let's be blunt. CSI is about being a caring corporate citizen. What you get out of it is an internal parameter. Communities and customers look up to you to be involved, to care, to be more than just a profit generator.

It is not just about money, it is about legitimacy. I see CSI as a very important tool and strategy to build and protect a company's most important asset and risk - it's good name, it's reputation.

By the way my name is Deon Binneman and I facilitate reputation workshops and thought leadership sessions around the globe.

I hope this helps. Just remember - throwing money at a CSR issue is not what it is about. Can you make a real difference? That is what it is all about.

Thanks.

The biggest mistake that some companies tend to still make is to confuse CSI with Marketing. To a large degree exposure and gain can be derived from Cause-Related Marketing which forms part of the CSI portfolio. For example the Dettol Trust for Aids Advertising campaign that features Archbishop Desmond Tutu. But CSI is not pure marketing and should never been to be used this way. CSI should not just be about community development, it should be a way of life.

wanting to help is the first step your motive should not be important. If you donate millions worth of food to poor people i am sure they will not mind you appearing on tv. In business you must always try to justify any use of funds if you donate 20 000 and get 17 000 worth of media or consumer empathy than it is a worth while transaction. No business however moral can afford to just give money away

As put above, a well govern company will always give back to its community. The notion that “nothing’s for mahala” doesn’t always hold true. In some companies staff members contribute voluntarily anything from money, food, or clothing to a charity scheme. Such are so successful such that donations will be made to different charity organisation each quarter. Sure the company will benefit in the long run through free publicity, but then who ever contributes to the scheme is expecting no monetary gains, but a sense of UBUNTU.

Oh sure - it'd be just peachy if everyone really 'cared'. But this is the real world, kiddies.

I say, however they wanna be involved - fine. If they're after media 'Brownie Points' - fine. At least they're doing something!

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Do noble causes have to die painful deaths just because their programs are not structured to provide maximum media coverage of the cheque handing over process? Is that why large corporates would rather sponsor golfing events than poor NGO's servicing even needier communities in the townships? Or is it that money begets money even with CSI? If you have no money to strategically brand and position your NGO to compete for this ever dwindling piece of the pie, you keel over and cease to exist?! Whatever happened to ploughing back into communities?

I believe that CSI in most companies these days is more about the WIIFM-syndrome (What's In It For Me?), and based on that, they're not only looking at how to best benefit out of it but they're also predominantly and sadly looking for quick fixes - the reality is that contributing a load of cash is the quickest and easiest way of supporting the notion that your company deems CSI as important to them and have this as part of their Core Company Values. I agree that the reason for doing it isn't what is most important, but that you DO go ahead and DO IT. However, what I'd dearly love to see is that big role players in the Private Sector actually start proper programmes that help people help themselves - the best kind of investment to make is investing in people - and that isn't always tangible. I say that companies should be asking the cliche question: Ask not what your country can do for you...ask what you can do for your country. A sincere intention or deed generally does come with benefits - whether planned or not. To answer the question finally, YES, CSI has EVERYTHING to do with Community Development - South Africa IS our community.