CSR at the Intersection of Intel and the Community
posted by Dave Stangis on April 04, 2008
I have a certain perspective of Corporate Responsibility at the “corporate” level. But, I also have a perspective of CSR (yes, there is a notable “S”) at the intersection of Intel and the communities in which we operate. There are some similarities, but I think there are even more differences.
I think that for most of the population and even for those that follow the CSR space closely, there are some black holes between the “corporate” functions of reporting, governance, strategy, operations, ethics, etc. and the “field” functions of CSR - community relations, stakeholder engagement, local agenda setting, volunteerism, grant making, product solutions and even government affairs.
Frankly, a neighbor of an Intel site has different expectations of my company than an SRI research analyst or asset manager. Most readers know about my integration/connection soapbox, so I won’t step up on it here. Let’s suffice it to say, my personal opinion is that not only is this dimension less known, it’s also more difficult to communicate effectively.
One thing I’ve tried recently is to compile some of the site and regional newsletters our sites publish for their local stakeholders. I’m collecting them and archiving the most recent on our CSR home page. These aren’t uniform. They aren’t aligned to the GRI. They have very little hard data. However, they are tailored to the local community stakeholders and are critical in our two way communication strategy. However, they are almost invisible to the broader CSR community.
So take a look at them. I GUARANTEE you will find something interesting or something you knew nothing about. I’m of course always interested in your feedback. GRI is setting up a process in the coming months to take a look at this concept of community impact as it pertains to reporting. I’m looking forward to that since it’s always been a challenging issue from a metrics standpoint.
Next week I’m off to Boston for the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship Conference. It looks like a good agenda. I’ll be speaking Tuesday on this whole concept of shifting communications. I’m also one of the new members of their Advisory Board - so I’m looking forward to that meeting as well.
And one last note if you’re still with me. We launched a deeper version of our Environmental webpage as well this week.
Comments (1)
tagged: BCCCC, community, Corporate responsibility, CSR, GRI, Newsletters, stakeholders
Comments
Apr 07 | Peggy Connolly said:
Thanks for the mention of the Boston College Conference on Corporate Citizenship … there are 500 people here in Boston sharing their challenges and trading success stories. There is so much richness here — I hope Dave finds a way to add this to CSR@Intel. I’m really looking forward to Dave sharing his pioneering ways using blogs and other new media to share Intel’s CSR work.