How a Blood Drive Can Inspire Employees

06/11/18 | by Health Dev | Reputation Management

The advantages of corporate social responsibility (CSR) aren’t always apparent when a company is looking into new initiatives to implement. Helping the community or environment are obvious goals, but what about the positive repercussions within your company? How do factors such as employee participation or brand reputation play a part in the goals of an initiative’s strategy?

This past month, iMatrix employees banded together for a blood drive for the San Diego Blood Bank. While everyone was encouraged to participate, there was no requirement to do so. But with a little healthy competition amongst departments, the event turned out to be the biggest blood drive in iMatrix history with 38 units collected. That’s 114 people who benefited from a one-day drive!

In addition helping the community with a blood donation, there were hidden benefits to this event: strengthening employee connections and setting the standards of the company’s culture to give back.

Advantages of Corporate Social Responsibility

Connecting with Employees

In order to be successful in your CSR initiatives, you have to enlist the support and involvement of one important group: your employees. And that means keeping them in the loop when developing your CSR strategies.
If your own employees don’t know what’s going on within your organization’s initiatives, you’re missing an opportunity. Getting employees engaged and activated in community service focused on the company’s CSR priorities will create a greater impact. By opening up the conversation about community service in the workplace, these CSR events will feel like second nature to your employees.

A few ways iMatrix includes all employees in our company’s CSR initiatives are: posters in the office sharing information about the event, email communication leading up to the event, encouragement in participation through incentives (like friendly competitions between departments).
advantages of corporate social responsibility

Engaging Current Clients

Your clients want to feel good about using your company. In addition to providing excellent customer service, sharing your CSR plans and events can help keep you at the forefront of your client’s minds.
By simply sharing a photo of the event, explaining how your CSR strategies help improve their bottom line, or encouraging client involvement in the initiatives you’ve identified, you can strengthen your client relationships and create opportunities for new ones.
How iMatrix gets customers involved: we regularly share our CSR initiatives on our social channels, include updates of our events on our blog, and frequently communicate through email newsletters.

Setting Yourself Apart from the Competition

Corporate social responsibility can aid in the search for companies to find their voice and incorporate the company’s values into their business model, but it can also be used to differentiate your brand from your competitors and increase interest from potential clients.
By regularly sharing your company’s CSR initiatives in communications with current clients and through social media updates, you strengthen your brand image and increase the value of your brand in prospective clients’ minds.
How iMatrix is standing out from the rest: Through regular CSR initiatives, employee involvement, and client engagement, we try and stay visible by sharing the events we host or attend so that our potential clients see the value in our CSR initiatives.

Increasing the Value of Your Brand

Consistency is key in increasing the value of your brand through CSR. No one strategy can stand alone in supporting your brand’s values and diversifying the strategies used to meet your company’s goals is important. Whether that mean scheduling a blood drive every quarter or setting up a company wide beach or canyon clean up monthly, the strategies you set in place to increase your brand’s value through corporate social responsibility need to be an ongoing commitment.
These strategies also need to tie into the company’s overall messaging. Find a cause or event that means something to the core of your brand’s identity and use that as a way to create your strategy. Doing this will ensure that your efforts are sincere and play seamlessly in your overall company goals. Clients and employees will also see the value more clearly.
advantages of corporate social responsibility

Next Steps to Becoming Socially Responsible

It’s suggested that you start small with your next CSR initiative if you haven’t delved into any strategies prior to now. Here are a few ideas to consider when narrowing down what your company wants to do and how it ties into your brand messaging:

Blood Drive
Clean-Up Event
Recycling Program
Food Drive (outside of the holidays)
Create your own event tied to your company values/offerings

These events can easily turn into recurring opportunities for your company and employees to become more involved with the community and start giving back today.