Last Sunday night (Feb.27), as Hollywood's A-List gathered for
its annual display of self-congratulation (aka the Academy Awards),
across the country in Boca Raton, Fla., prizes of an entirely
different sort were being handed out.
Office Depot's "Silent Auction," offering "themed"
baskets stuffed with goodies from the office-supply chain's
vendors, was expected to raise at least $75,000 in grant money for
Count-Me-In, a New York City-based nonprofit that since 1999
has provided small loans to more than 600 women (who can't get bank
loans) to help them get their own businesses off of the ground.
Delray Beach, Fla.-based Office Depot has supported the charity
since 2001.
The auction -- the culmination of a week-long conference on
corporate social responsibility (CSR) with guest speakers ranging
from the poet and novelist Maya Angelou to Oprah Winfrey --
reflects the changing nature of CSR, in which companies are trying
to draw sharper lines between charitable/community-based programs
and the bottom line.
"Some of our largest customers are women who own their own
businesses and, through [the auction], we're able to show we
support the community," says Mary Wong, Office Depot's director of
community relations who reports directly to the company's CEO and
CFO. "Publicity comes about once you have established a good, solid
program. If you go into it with a PR mindset, you're doing it for
the wrong reasons."
These days, Wong says, the challenge for PR executives is to
communicate that effective CSR is not just about the numbers. "If
you have a company giving away money, people have a right to know
what the return on investment (ROI) is. But you need to show that
it doesn't have to be cash or a percentage on the dollar," she
says. "It's also [Office Depot's] winning the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce's Corporate Stewardship Award for Corporate
Citizenship (2004). People have to understand CSR in its totality.
We call it the 'invisible ROI.'"
Verizon, recently named for the second consecutive year
as one of Fortune's Most Admired Companies (in
telecommunications), may also qualify for that moniker. Like Office
Depot, Verizon has poured CSR into the corporate "DNA," getting
buy-in from the CEO and then working to infuse the program(s)
throughout the enterprise.
"Before, our efforts were more scattered and fragmented," says
Andrew Brown, Verizon's executive director of public-affairs
programs. "We supported the community in the past, but [in 2000] we
decided to take a stand and find an issue that makes the most sense
for us."
"Verizon Reads" has provided more than $100 million to help
fight illiteracy, a chronic problem that continues to affect
millions of Americans. Against the backdrop of this program is the
company's ongoing effort to transform itself from being a
traditional telephone company into a provider of broadband
services. "Literacy is one of the fundamental building blocks of
our business," Brown adds. "Our employees have to be very computer
literate because [technicians out on in the field] are working on
laptops. And if you're a potential it's hard to be proactive on the
Internet if you can't read."
The multi-faceted program includes partnerships with 24
national, regional and local literacy organizations, including the
American Foundation for the Blind and ProLiteracy
Worldwide; an annual book drive run by Verizon employees that
so far has donated more than 800,000 volumes to libraries et
al; and "Verizon's Literacy Champions," with celebrities like
NFL stars and twin brothers Ronde and Tiki Barber working
pro bono to drum up support. As Christopher Lloyd, director
of strategic alliances at Verizon, puts it, the program allows the
company to demonstrate its values, and PR plays a vital role in
getting that message out. "From a PR point of view, it's engaging
communities at the local level about the literacy programs," he
says.
Marc Epstein, a distinguished research professor at
Rice's Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management,
has been studying CSR for 30 years. "The onus is on PR to be make
sure what's being promoted is representative of the actions your
company is taking. If not, you're going to get caught."