Corporate community policies

What is a corporate community policy?

A community investment policy enables the company to identify its priorities and ways of operating in terms of how it invests in or contributes to the community.  

Many companies start the process of community involvement in an ad-hoc way, either tackling the ‘Chairman’s charities’ or simply going for immediately visible and compelling issues. However, as they begin to see the process of community involvement with greater sophistication they begin to recognise that it is a process that, with the right strategic approach and supporting business case, can benefit the business and also maximise the good results for the community. At this stage, the company maps out its approach to community involvement through a policy or strategy.

A policy is a company’s statement of intent regarding its performance on a specific aspect of responsible business.  Policies enable a company to translate its values into commitments and responsibilities, and provide the basis on which a company can set objectives and targets. It enables the company to be more strategic and more consistent in the ways in which it operates.

Many companies makes their policies freely available to the public, for example, in their corporate reports or on their website.

Why would you need one?

Companies are increasingly recognising that they have a significant impact on the communities in which they work and that they have a responsibility to recognise their impact and make a positive contribution to local communities.  When integrated into the business, taking community issues seriously can provide real benefits like:

• Improved recruitment, retention, and motivation of staff
• Increase in positive reputational benefits
• Improved relationships with local communities
• Increased potential for innovation as result of create partnerships

Establishing a strong community policy helps to provide a framework for your business to communicate how your business will act responsibly within the community.  

What's the catch?

It is not enough to simply write a community policy. In order to get real value from working with the community and build this idea into the business, there must be management systems and processes in place throughout the business to ensure that the commitments outlined it the policy are valued and taken seriously.

Another key point to consider is that the best community policies clearly state how the efforts behind community contributions are conducted as part of everyday mainstream business not as an additional after thought.

What would you expect to find in a community policy?

A comprehensive community policy should answer the following questions: 

• Does the policy include a statement of the company’s commitment to community investment and the reason for that commitment?
• How does the company make decisions on issues of focus for community activity – is it decided strategically at the top, through employee involvement or a combination of the two?
• How will the community strategy be managed within the organisation? What does the structure look like?
• Does the policy cover the three most common types of charitable contributions: time, skills and resources?
• Does the policy explain if the company will give paid time-off for employees’ volunteering? If so is there a time-off policy?
• Will the company offer matched giving?  If so, at what level will the company match raised funds?

In addition to covering all of the questions listed above, it is also important to communicate how and when the policy will be reviewed.  This is an opportunity to modify a policy so that it continues to reflect current business and societal issues. Finally, there is an increasing trend for companies to make community policies available to all its stakeholders by putting it in the public domain. 

How do you go about putting one into place?

If you would like to talk to us about how BITC can help you to establish a community strategy and policy for your business, please email Catherine Sermon.