Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives are getting more popular amongst large organisations. But when it comes to medium and small businesses, CSR initiatives are nowhere to be found.
While the notion that CSR initiatives are meant only for large organisations generating millions or billions of dollars in revenue, small and medium-sized businesses can benefit greatly from them too.
At its core, Corporate Social Responsibility is when an organisation takes responsibility for its activities, decisions, and much more in the community, environment, and society at large. They do this by contributing to the intellectual, health, and financial welfare of the communities through programs, donations, and much more.
While this might sound expensive, it could be a big plus to the growth of your business.
To have a greater understanding of the advantages of engaging in CSR activities for your business, here are 7 benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives for businesses:
See Also: 3 Things You Must Stop Saying If You Want To Build A Great Company
1). A Way To Build New & Better Relationships With Clients:
During CSR activities, organisations could offer free services to the communities around them. Lawyers could do pro-bono (free) work for less privileged target audiences, and other companies could offer free products and services to the community they currently operate in.
When you offer free products and services to existing and prospective clients, many people get to have a feel of what your company is into without taking the risk of spending money to find out. If you exceed expectations, a few could talk to people they know who would benefit from your services to reach out to your organisation.
Even better, some of the people who enjoyed and found great value in the free products and services they got from you could end up becoming paying clients.
2). To Attract And Retain Quality Employees:
Great people do what they do because they truly enjoy doing it. And when they see people who have the same values, beliefs, and standards as they, they feel a strong sense of connection and would want to be or remain a part of that structure.
If through CSR activities you empower talented employees who do not just do great work but also love to help people in communities, they’d feel you don’t just care about them but also about the communities they care about and would want to do more to see you succeed.
And for talents that operate from outside the organisation, those who truly are passionate about what they do and see that you stand by those same values and beliefs would tend to want to work for you.
See Also: Want Your Business to Succeed? You Need to Find These Two Employees
3). To Have A Great Impact On The Community:
Every community and society have both privileged and underprivileged residents. And so, when companies carry out CSR activities in these communities, they add value to the lives of the people living there.
The CSR activity could be to fix the roads in a community, to provide funds for farmers, to provide food for the people, to provide free education, and much more.
Depending on what CSR initiative is carried out by your organisation, you could genuinely be changing the lives of the people who live in the environment.
4). To Get Tax Breaks:
In many places around the world, governments give special tax breaks to companies who carry out CSR activities. And the tax breaks are mostly dependent on the size of the project the company carries out.
Depending on what you’re doing and in which country you are, you might get a tax holiday of up to 3 or more years, or a discount on the taxes you’re to pay.
See Also: How To Choose Great Co-Founders For Your Business
5). To Attract Great Media Attention:
When companies carry out CSR activities that target a very important aspect of society, media outlets sometimes televise it so that people can know there is great progress happening in that area.
If your company happens to be the one doing this, you’ll get a whole lot of positive press which would also be a great advertisement for you.
Even if the media outlets choose not to broadcast it, you could pay them directly to cover your CSR activities, so that the world can know what you’re doing to help the communities.
6). To Test & Identify New Business Opportunities:
Since you’d most likely be using your products and services to add value to communities during your CSR activities, you could also test your new products and services with the community at no cost to them and also discover more opportunities from getting feedback on the problems the community faces that your company might be able to solve.
See Also: How To Improve Employee Loyalty & Commitment To Your Business
7). To Build A Great Reputation:
Carrying out CSR activities is a great thing whether you get exposure or not, as it says a lot about the values, beliefs, and contributions of your company to the betterment of the world around you.
When you do this and get noticed, your reputation rises as an organisation that cares about its environment and the people who live in it, and so, consumers would be more motivated to do business with you, other organisations would want to partner with you since an association with your brand would be a positive influence on theirs, and in all, investors would be inspired to invest in you.
 For Your Business in Nigeria, Africa, or anywhere arounf the world.){kind=link}
I like the CSR benefit of getting media attention because it has other add-ons in exposing and creating a long-lasting awareness to your business.
Thank you for the contribution, Isuamfon.
Time and again, consumers, employees, and investors have shown a distinct preference for companies that take their social responsibilities seriously. A Center for Corporate Citizenship study found that 66 percent of executives thought their social responsibility strategies resulted in improving corporate reputation and saw this as a business benefit.
Thank you for your contribution, Goyum.
i really to appreciated you for improving corporate trading company.
Thank you for the commendation, Taiye.
Do have a great time.
Thank you for analyzing the benefits of corporate social responsibility initiatives for business and the benefits of participating in CSR.
I appreciate you for improving your corporate trading company.