If anyone doubts that corporate citizenship is here to stay, he or she should heed the words of Carol Cone, the PR doyenne who heads Cone Inc., a Boston-based
strategic marketing and communications firm.
"Corporate citizenship offers an opportunity to get to the epicenter of an organization and support branding as well as sales," she says. "Not only is it important to
consumers, but also to employees, because you want someone to be thoroughly engaged in the company's vision and business. Companies recognize the importance of brand building from
the inside out, and that's why they're taking their corporate giving and citizenship efforts much more seriously."
The occasion for such pronouncements is the release of the 2004 Cone Corporate Citizenship Study, which found that 77% of Americans believe companies have a responsibility to
support causes, and that they subsequently plan to reward them with increased customer loyalty and dollars. This, in turn, has left companies pondering which causes to support.
Cone has been conducting the study since 1993, and as the world has evolved, so have the questions. According to the study, important issues for Americans this time around
were education, health and the environment compared with crime and homelessness back in 1993(see charts). "What was fascinating was that, when we drilled down, workforce
retraining and literacy were the top issues," Cone says. "There's something happening here. Consumers are saying that employees coming back into the workforce need to be
prepared."
Cone also points out that it's an encouraging time to be in the PR business because of the fragmentation of media (not to mention transparency issues). "Don't be perceived
as a PR person, but as a strategist," she urges. "I call on all of my colleagues in the industry to do your homework, understand what's happening in your organization, and build a
program that creates systemic change within an organization and in society."
Contact: Mindy Gomes Casseres, 617.939.8371, [email protected]
Education, health and environment are currently the most important issues affecting Americans:
| Issue | % of Total |
|---|---|
| Education |
81%
|
| Health |
81%
|
| Environment |
80%
|
| Poverty |
65%
|
| Crime and Terrorism |
65%
|
| Youth |
59%
|
| Housing and Community Development |
56%
|
Faced with an uncertain economy, corporate scandals, and continued industry consolidation, 80% of Americans identified workforce re-training as an important issue. Other
education issues of importance to Americans include:
| Issue | % of Total |
|---|---|
| Workforce Re-training |
80%
|
| Literacy |
74%
|
| Student Scholarship |
73%
|
| Math and science |
72%
|
| Computer Literacy |
68%
|
| Teacher Recruitment/Retention |
60%
|
Source: Cone Inc.
Methodology: The 2004 Cone Corporate Citizenship Study report presents the findings of a telephone survey conducted among a national probability sample of 1,033 adults
comprising 519 men and 514 women 18 years of age and older, living in private households in the continental United States. Interviewing for this CARAVANr Survey was completed by
Opinion Research during the period October 22 - 25, 2004. The margin of error is +/- three percentage points.