Suggestions for norms and guidelines for Companies to adopt in their CSR initiatives.

Currently, it is a common practice for companies to adopt four parameters to assess their performance viz:

(a) Financial results which have traditionally been the yardstick to judge results and which will continue to be the major focus as a strong bottom line is what any company needs for  sustainability.

(b) Economic results with a special focus on governance and ethics in conduct of business and presentation of results.

(c) Environmentally friendly approach to business.

(d) Social responsibility towards the community where the company operates and towards the underprivileged specially women and children

Within such a framework, the CSR initiatives of a company would feature as a part of the mission statement of an organization so that all employees understand the role of CSR and participate in the areas in which the company has chosen to engage. This is terribly important because in our view, the approach to CSR should not be one of doing charity but rather one where the company shares its resources –both financial and human-for the upliftment of the strata of society that needs help.

A certain percentage of a company’s annual turn over would be set aside for the CSR activities and simultaneously a certain number of personnel would be committed to work along with the NGO/organizations that the company has selected for its CSR initiatives.

Suggestions on how CSR initiatives of Companies could be graded/assessed.

As far as the commitment of financial resources is concerned, the amount to be contributed could be related to the volume of the annual turn over of the company. Similarly, a certain financial commitment towards CSR could be linked to the number of personnel to be actively involved in the CSR initiative.

In our opinion when a company attaches itself to a certain activity under its CSR banner, it is subscribing to a cause. How genuinely it attaches itself to promoting that cause in the conduct of its main activity would be a good basis to decide on its performance whilst grading companies. To take an example, suppose a company chooses to promote the cause of educating street children, then apart from setting aside a certain financial grant and personnel it would have to be seen how often these underprivileged children feature in the companies corporate activities. One effective basis to grade organizations on their CSR initiative would be to assess the extent to which employees are encouraged to give a certain percentage of their time and talent to fostering the cause being promoted by the NGO selected by the organization. Taking the same example of education of street children, the ultimate would be for the company to include in its corporate budget, the provision to absorb a few of the educated children into their workforce. This might require providing skill training to the selected candidates but this would give a big boost to the NGO undertaking this activity as well as the children concerned because the involvement of the organization is clearly visible.

Suggestions for initiatives and projects that companies can take up for CSR

Areas of social development that are high priority are firstly education of children so as to provide them training and ability to be employable and secondly the empowerment of women. Companies should  in our view therefore attach high priority to these areas in their CSR initiatives. Most of the NGOs working in these areas are also involved in similar work in rural areas where the need is even greater. Companies could consider adopting some of these projects as a part of their CSR initiatives. This will have the dual advantage that the NGO will have the backing of a corporate in handling such projects involving a lot of investment in terms of time and human resources apart from finances and the company would be able to track its own performance under the CSR banner.

This is perhaps one of the feasible alternatives for NGO/Corporate partnership in achieving social developmental objectives. This would also require the NGO to put in place certain acceptable yardsticks to judge the performance of the project adopted.

Regards- products@aseema.org