KindLink is the network with purpose. We’re a digital platform connecting all actors in corporate social responsibility and sustainable action. We provide a community where you build connections with colleagues and friends so you can clearly see the good you do in the world.
We increase companies’ reputation and employee engagement by showcasing their social impact; and help charities engage more with their supporters and raise more funds for their crucial work, for free.
Our team is composed of people from the financial technology and charity sectors. We created KindLink to bring back trust and transparency to the charity sector and because we believe that more efficient charities that do not need to worry about their overstretched resources and lack of tools to successfully manage their work can focus on what they do best: help others and make the world a better place. Learn more about our founding story here.
Yes, KindLink software is free for charities and is managed by the KindLink Foundation, a registered charity (no. 1177210). We do not take any fees or commission from your donations - we believe charities very well know how to spend the funds they raise, and we do not take anything for ourselves. We have a partnership with one of the biggest payment processing acquirers Stripe, which ensures the lowest fees and best payment terms on the market:
Stripe Pricing UK Non-profits
1.40% + 15p for UK cards
2.50% + 15p for European cards
3.10% + 24p for non-UK and AMEX cards
Additional fees
+ £1p/m for active months
+ 10p per payout
Stripe Pricing EU Non-profits
1.40% + 0.30€* for European cards
2.50% + 0.30€* for UK cards
3.10% + 0.30€* for non-European and AMEX cards
*(0.30€ fee might slightly vary if local currency is other than EUR)
Additional fees
+ €1 p/m for active months
+ 10c per payout
Stripe Pricing US & Canada Non-profits
2.5% + 0.35 USD/CAD for US & Canadian Cards
3.5% + 0.35 USD/CAD for non-US & non-Canadian Cards
3.7% + 0.35 USD/CAD for AMEX
Additional fees
+ $1 p/m for active months
+ 10c per payout
Foreign Currencies:
Should your non-profit require, we can manually enable multiple currencies for accepting donations. Simply contact help@kindlink.com and provide us with the bank account details of your foreign currency accounts. Additional fees might apply depending on the currency support by Stripe.
KindLink works with companies to make their corporate social responsibility impact visible and allow them to increase their employee and customer engagement through their philanthropic and sustainability activities. KindLink for Business links to KindLink for Charities and allows non-profits to report more efficiently and engage better with their supporters. At the same time businesses receive live impact updates from the charities they support. We help these businesses effectively market their good deeds through CSR tools integrated with social media platforms. See more here and here.
We really appreciate it! Thank you! Please tell a business or non-profit you know about us. Your reference is the biggest vote of confidence we can get.
Just follow this link! It takes only a few minutes to set up a charity account with KindLink.
We only need you to fill five fields of information, and then you can start using the donor and beneficiary CRM, donation management services, and Gift Aid reporting. In order to process online donations, we will be asking a couple more pieces of information that will allow us and our partner, Stripe, to do due diligence checks. Don’t worry, it is all online and effortless.
Yes, KindLink software is free for charities and is managed by the KindLink Foundation, a registered charity (no. 1177210). We do not take any fees or commission from your donations - we believe charities very well know how to spend the funds they raise, and we do not take anything for ourselves. We have a partnership with one of the biggest payment processing acquirers Stripe, which ensures the lowest fees and best payment terms on the market:
Stripe Pricing UK Non-profits
1.40% + 15p for UK cards
2.50% + 15p for European cards
3.10% + 24p for non-UK and AMEX cards
Additional fees
+ £1p/m for active months
+ 10p per payout
Stripe Pricing EU Non-profits
1.40% + 0.30€* for European cards
2.50% + 0.30€* for UK cards
3.10% + 0.30€* for non-European and AMEX cards
*(0.30€ fee might slightly vary if local currency is other than EUR)
Additional fees
+ €1 p/m for active months
+ 10c per payout
Stripe Pricing US & Canada Non-profits
2.5% + 0.35 USD/CAD for US & Canadian Cards
3.5% + 0.35 USD/CAD for non-US & non-Canadian Cards
3.7% + 0.35 USD/CAD for AMEX
Additional fees
+ $1 p/m for active months
+ 10c per payout
Foreign Currencies:
Should your non-profit require, we can manually enable multiple currencies for accepting donations. Simply contact help@kindlink.com and provide us with the bank account details of your foreign currency accounts. Additional fees might apply depending on the currency support by Stripe.
Yes, we cannot admit charities that are established for and are working solely on the promotion of political and religious beliefs.
Yes, we can process charity Gift Aid automatically. Moreover, we will not only record the Gift Aid from a donor but automatically file it for you with HMRC. Your charity can determine how often we process Gift Aid. Thanks to KindLink, claiming Gift Aid will become effortless and can be done even on a daily basis if you like. We recommend you claim it once a week so that you don’t miss out on the valuable flow of cash.
We work with all non-profit organisations including CICs, registered companies with charitable purpose, etc. We can work with any nonprofit organisation that is registered with the relevant regulatory body in your country - Charity Commission, HMRC or Companies House - or with your national regulatory body (see question below for further details). We might not be able to work with you if your organisation is an unincorporated organisation and you’re not registered with any regulatory body.
Other non-profit organisations might be subject to additional verification and security checks.
We strive to keep KindLink a safe community for charitable organisations and their supporters, so verification is essential to comply with legal and Financial Conduct Authority requirements and build a transparent relationship with your supporters.
KindLink does not give grants to charities. We do much more than that! We give all charities the opportunity to showcase their work more transparently and be able to attract more funding.
£1
Online card transactions and recurring payments.
Absolutely yes! Claiming Gift Aid on KindLink is safe and completely free of charge. As one of the HMRC approved software suppliers we integrate directly with HMRC so that you claim GA any time you want and as simply as possible. This also means that the GA funds do not go through our bank account; the money is paid by the HMRC directly into your account.
KindLink is not only a fundraising platform. Fundraising is just one of KindLink’s many functionalities amongst which are a CRM for donors and beneficiaries, corporate engagement and reporting tool, Gift Aid reporting and project management. We give the donor a tangible reason to donate more by showing them the impact of what their donation can achieve. We are also proud to provide charities 100% of their donations so that they may do more kindness.
Yes, of course. Our donation and donor management systems allow you to record Gift Aided (or other) donations from other systems, as well as import and export your database for external purposes. We will still automatically file Gift Aid claims for you for free. KindLink is built for small charities, so if there’s anything that we can build to help you out, please let us know.
Monday to Friday: 9:30am - 5:30pm (United Kingdom Time)
Send us an email to help@kindlink.com.
We aim to reply to all messages within 72 hours. Kindly note that we do not provide direct UK non-profit telephone support.
US business clients line: (844) 998-3827
£10 credit card donation with Gift Aid.
Amount given by the donor | £10.00 |
Less bank fees | - £0.29 |
Plus Gift Aid on the donation | + £2.50 |
Total net amount retained by charity | £12.21 |
Corporate Social Responsibility is increasingly important to businesses. More consumers are looking at large corporations and small businesses to engage in CSR voluntary work from environmental conservation to community services. Consumers are 92 percent more likely to trust a company that supports these issues, according to the Cone Communications research, and it's reflective in successful marketing campaigns and sales.
Young consumers also brought this philanthropic trend into the office by seeking employers passionate about the same sustainable and social issues as they are. Research by Deloitte found that Millennials spend the most time on a company's CSR webpage when researching a prospective workplace. Internal public relations and human resources must recognize young, talented professionals are eager to make a contribution to a kinder world.
KindLink wants to help utilize and manage the corporate social responsibility plan so businesses can spread more kindness and create thriving employees.
KindLink provides your business with the CSR tools needed to utilize your company's initiatives.
Our KindLink software allows your business to organize volunteering and fundraising campaigns, match-giving promises, and payroll giving schemes. All company kind deeds are displayed on campaign pages that are integrated with social media channels and internal channels for marketing material and organizational purposes.
KindLink also helps you bring ethical, sustainable business practices into your office with our impact reports, which allows you to record everything from plastic bottles recycled in the office to CO2 saved during manufacturing. KindLink also encourages you to track new skills developed by your employees during volunteering on this feature.
Please click here to learn more about our business platform. We are happy to discuss any additional ways we can serve your business's CSR needs. Please contact us here with any additional enquiries.
We provide your employees with an opportunity to organise their own fundraising and volunteering campaigns. KindLink stores all your company CSR initiatives in one place, which allows your employees to search and filter through initiatives and then participate where they’re most passionate. We added permission-flow so you can keep an eye on their good work.
Yes, absolutely.
KindLink has a robust participation management system. We've implemented multiple levels of approval processes for companies to manage their employees' volunteering. Our system can be customized for your administrative needs. Your employees can record their own participation data or volunteer hours. KindLink also allows CSR managers or other team leaders to manually add participants to volunteer campaigns. Volunteering can be added to employee calendars as well as linked to email notification so your entire team knows it's time to do kind work.
KindLink provides our business clients direct impact updates, data and posts from charities. Our charities will share pictures, videos, and stories documenting their work done with your donations. Your profile will show you what they were able to execute with your help whether you provided monetary, non-monetary, or environmental donations. We also link this media to your campaign page, so it’s easy to market the result of your donations.
Yes, KindLink is integrated with social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. We’re also connected to your internal channels, like Slack, Yammer, and email clients.
Our corporate social responsibility reporting can be fully customized dashboards as well as or full raw data export in Excel based on your unique business requirements.
Yes, we integrate with external social media channels and internal channels for our CSR tools.
We’re excited to provide our users with two different ways to do match giving on KindLink.
The first option is that your employees fundraise directly on KindLink and have their campaigns promoted like a crowdfunding campaign. A CSR manager can then go directly to that campaign to record the transaction. This will be posted on the campaign page, so your hard-working employee can see that you matched their donations!
The second way we let you do match giving starts with an employee donating directly to a charity or using outside fundraising platforms. In the match giving initiative the employee can download a match giving form to fill out or directly upload proof of the donation and notify the manager.
We now provide a unique Payroll Giving service through our KindLink software and KindLink Foundation. Our foundation is an HMRC registered Payroll Giving Agent created to transparently process your payroll giving. We provide your employees with a simple online tool to record and manage their payroll giving histories and donations on one webpage. Our payroll giving is an end-to-end solution for your business. In addition, we support the Geared for Giving initiative and additional pricing discounts are available through the scheme.
The Payroll Giving feature is part of our B2B SaaS annual fee. For processing the scheme with HMRC KindLink foundation charges 1.5 percent of the payroll donation. Your company has the choice to pay this percentage or pass the fee onto the beneficiary charity. This is not a commercial fee; it goes to the KindLink Foundation - a registered charity - which we use to provide businesses payroll giving services. Our payroll scheme is 70 percent cheaper than other providers, and as part of the Geared for Giving scheme we guarantee our pricing to be at least 50 percent less than your current provider. KindLink partners with Geared for Giving to encourage more employees to donate through payroll giving.
KindLink wants to help you do more good deeds as a business, so we will help with any of your support enquiries, trainings, set up implementation and so on. You will receive a support phone number you can call any time during the day or you can chat with us on our website. Meanwhile, we aim to answer any enquiries within 24 hours. SLA contracts are offered to our Enterprise business customers. Email us.
Here at KindLink, we know one-by-one we can make the world a kinder place. That's why we are building a new platform where individual donors can see the impact of their donation and feel a real connection to the good they have done. Stay tuned and sign up here while we work to bring transparency and innovation to individual philanthropy. If your company has a KindLink Business account, you can request them to give you access.
To donate to a charity, please visit the existing charity websites and their donation buttons.
Yes, of course you can! But you will miss all the amazing stories that charities share with other KindLink users.
Yes.
Yes, we collect your email when processing your donation to send a receipt for tax purposes.
Just get in touch at help@kindlink.com and we’ll cancel it for you.
We keep our software, tools and libraries up-to-date with security standards and latest trends. As we use Google Cloud for all IT related activities our infrastructure complies with ISO-27001. To top it off we are applying an SSL Certificate (the green lock in your web address field) with TLS and strong cyphers for all our web services. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), registration reference: ZA187358. Last but not least, we use secure payment processing channels and tokenisation of card details between us and our payment provider – Stripe.
KindLink is PCI DSS compliant. For additional security we do not store any payment card data. That information is stored by our payment provider Stripe. Their systems and procedures are fully PCI DSS compliant as well as Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regulated.
We take your privacy and personal data very seriously. We will always ask for users’ permission to store their data as they create accounts on the platform, and we have checks and mechanisms in place to ensure that all our users and clients can confidently operate KindLink, knowing that we comply with GDPR. If you would like to know more about this, please check our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions.
We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and comply with this UK Data Privacy regulator’s rules on handling data. The data on KindLink is yours only. See more details in our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions.
Only charity team-members whom you invited to the platform can see your data. In different support cases, our trained team can help you out with any data set related issues.
We do not sell or exchange personal data to third parties. It fully depends on you if you would like to give your details to the charity or create an account with KindLink.
KindLink is PCI DSS compliant. For additional security we do not store any payment card data, that information is stored by our payment provider Stripe. Their systems and procedures are fully PCI DSS compliant as well as regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). We use the most secure payment processing channels using tokenisation of card details between us and our payment provider – Stripe.
No, we’ll keep our communication to a few, kind and useful words. Also, let us know and we'll make sure we don't email you at all.
Sustainability is goal-driven practice which encapsulates social, environmental and economic dimensions. The goal of sustainability within business is to create processes or systems that are maintainable over indefinite periods of time, avoiding damaging impact or depleted resources. Sustainability can be observed within development, business models, manufacturing practices and much more.
From an environmental standpoint, sustainability will involve ensuring that emissions are kept as low as possible, water consumption is minimised and that any other natural resources required for manufacture or operation are sourced responsibly. This begins with procurement and continues right up the supply chain, to the point of sale and beyond into the full product lifecycle.
Societal sustainability might involve aspects such as providing training and employment opportunities locally, sharing resources with local communities, giving back to causes that are impacting surrounding neighbourhoods or improving communication to better understand the needs and concerns of those impacted by the operation of a business.
Sustainability is important for a number of reasons, first and foremost – for the long term health and survival of our planet. Without a focus on sustainability from businesses and individuals alike, we run the risk of consumption outstripping available resources. Increasingly, we are seeing a rise in the popularity of circular economy business models, and these exemplify the benefits of sustainability in business.
Sustainability is also increasingly important within businesses from a public relations standpoint. Consumer consciousness around matters of sustainability is rising – customers care about the impact of the brands and businesses that they choose to spend their money with, and as a result, the amount of effort and care that a business puts into ensuring their sustainability is increasingly critical.
Finally, sustainability is increasingly coming under tighter scrutiny from a regulation standpoint. Fighting climate change through carbon taxes and emission goals is a modern reality, and as pressure mounts, we can expect this focus and pressure to intensify.
Sustainability in business considers operational impact, seeking ways to mitigate negative effects, whilst increasing efficiency. Sustainability in business begins with the procurement process – ensuring that materials, methods of production and product lifecycle are all as environmentally sound as possible. From there, all aspects of commercial operations can be considered and optimised for sustainability, considering the environmental impact of digital operations, transportation, the maintenance and operation of offices, storage and much more.
Sustainability in business touches more than just environmental impact – social impact should also be considered. To operate in a truly sustainable fashion, businesses should also be evaluating their impact on society, on a local and global scale. By seeking ways to improve their actions and impact here, businesses can ensure a full spectrum sustainability, positively impacting human as well as environmental factors.
In order to measure sustainability, businesses first need to have a clear understanding of the various ways in which they have an impact on the environment and society. Typically, the “ESG” model of “Environmental, Social and Governance” factors is leveraged here to measure the varying impacts that a business can have on the planet and population.
Many different aspects of a company can be tracked and recorded when looking to measure sustainability. From an environmental view, these might include factors such as carbon footprint and water usage. Social factors include community development and charitable efforts. Sustainability in governance would cover aspects such as board diversity and transparency of reporting. Increasingly, companies are using the framework offered by the United Nation’s SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) which offers a shared blueprint of 17 goals to aid “peace and prosperity for people and the planet.”
In order to make your business more sustainable, you must first attain a clear understanding of your current impact. After you have established a clear way of measuring and assessing these factors, you can start to develop a clear strategy and supporting policies. Identify areas of strength and weakness and take appropriate action in each case – doubling down on areas of strength, and investing in areas where improvement is required.
Setting goals and developing a clear strategy to help your business methodically work towards achieving a better level of sustainability is essential. Typically, a business that is looking to become more sustainable will develop dedicated ESG policies. These clearly define the business’ approach to the way it operates in terms of environmental, social and governmental aspects of its operation.
ESG is a reporting framework designed to help businesses measure and improve their environmental, social and governance impacts. Businesses are increasingly leveraging ESG reporting as a way of demonstrating their ability to run ethical, low-risk operations that act responsibly and operate in a mindful fashion. Increasingly, ESG reporting is being used by investors looking to screen potential additions to their portfolios.
Environmental ESG criteria may include corporate climate policies, energy consumption, waste reduction efforts, pollution reduction, and the preservation of natural resources. Social ESG criteria are focused on the way in which a business treats the people connected to its operations, chiefly stakeholders and employees. They consider factors such as procurement policies that fall in line with company values and the prominence of charitable efforts, for example, well-supported volunteering schemes, community engagement or fundraising initiatives. Governance factors look at the way a company is run – for example, employee engagement, the transparency of internal reporting and the fair selection of governing boards.
ESG stands for Environmental, Social and Governance. These are the three factors which are considered within an ESG rating – a method of scoring a business with regard to the efforts it invests within ensuring it operates in a way that is environmentally, socially and governmentally responsible.
ESG is increasingly important to businesses, as a good ESG rating suggests a stable, low-risk business that is operating efficiently and responsibly. As a result, these businesses tend to be good candidates for investment.
ESG in business relates to the way that a company operates across three key areas – Environmental, Social and Governance. By measuring their impact in each of these three categories, companies can demonstrate their ability to operate in an ethical, responsible and sustainable manner.
As a high ESG rating tends to denote a low-risk business which puts careful consideration into the strategy surrounding its operation, ESG investment is becoming increasingly common. ESG investing can also be referred to as impact investing, responsible investing, sustainable investing, or socially responsible investing (SRI). As a result, a focus on ESG within business is becoming increasingly prevalent.
With ESG now representing such an important aspect of modern business, it's important that companies take a proactive approach towards improving their performance. Dedicated strategies are essential – a one size fits all approach will simply not fulfil the expectations of modern ESG.
In order to develop an ESG strategy, businesses must start from the ground up – assessing their strengths and weaknesses as a starting point and considering both internal (business-facing) and external (public-facing) impact.
Next, clear objectives and goals must be set. ESG looks at tangible impact, so be sure to set measurable targets that you have the capacity to track and monitor over time. Look at your strengths and weaknesses to ascertain where improvements, maintenance or optimisation is required.
Finally, develop your roadmap. This should factor in progressive targets, milestones and regular reassessment. Put KPIs in place and ensure that all stakeholders are given the authority, resources and autonomy required to meet these indicators over time.
ESG engagement refers to the increasingly active level of engagement that investors will apply to businesses they work with, with regard to their ESG performance and ongoing progress. As a benchmark for responsible business practice, ESG factors have increasingly become synonymous as a predictive indicator of a business's performance over time. As a result, investors are increasingly engaged with a company’s ESG plans, and will typically want to get a better idea of how risks are being managed and mitigated.
ESG engagement can be a very beneficial practice for everyone involved, as additional, external perspectives and motivations come into play. As investors become more demanding with regard to their understanding of a company’s ESG strategy, reporting standards are driven up, which in turn has a positive impact on the information that is made available to other stakeholders and NGOs.
ESG plays an important role within modern, responsible business. Although all businesses will typically profess to care for the environment, their workforce, connected community and stakeholders, the practice of ESG applies clear parameters to these aspirations, meaning more accountability and, as a result, tangible progress.
ESG provides an essential point of reference for investors, stakeholders and employees alike, helping them to make informed decisions about the companies that they align themselves with. ESG also offers a framework for improvement over time, attributing numerical values to the progress that a company manages to make.
There is no one answer to this question – a number of different methods for scoring ESG have emerged in recent years, correlating to the increasing rise in interest and demand for ESG measurement.
When selecting a scoring system, businesses should look for methodologies that are fully transparent, offering objective, accurate and consistent insight into their analysis. It is advisable to select a scoring system that you are comfortable working with over an extended period of time, so that your ESG score is assessed in the same manner, across the same frame of criteria over time. The UN’s SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) also offer a framework of 17 factors for improvement which are widely recognised and well respected.
Bespoke scoring systems can make comparison problematic, so in order to sidestep subjectivity, it can be helpful for businesses to seek out scores that can be indexed against more universal benchmarks. Increasingly, ESG scores are informed by machine learning and natural language processing technology, which can make assessments of huge amounts of data at scale.
While an ESG strategy will lay out the “how” of getting to a company’s defined goals, an ESG policy lays out the “why.” Creating ESG policies helps businesses to out clear intent and ambition surrounding critical ESG, by outlining the approach that they intend to take.
ESG policies should be clear, unambiguous and applicable across the full spectrum of your ESG strategy. To this end, separate policies documenting your intended approach to Environment, Social and Governmental aspects of your operation can be advantageous.
Writing an ESG policy is just the start of best practice here. Businesses also need to ensure good access to these documents, especially for the purposes of investment or client procurement – transparency and availability is key, and should ideally be both internal and external facing.
Is ESG reporting mandatory? The answer is yes – and no. While producing an ESG report may not be required by law, some aspects of ESG reporting are legally required in certain jurisdictions – and by assessing recent trends, we can assume that these requirements are only set to increase and spread.
Currently, the main focus for mandatory reporting centres around emissions (specifically carbon emissions.) In 2021, for example, the UK became the first G20 country to demand mandatory disclosure of climate-related risks and opportunities from Britain’s largest businesses. This sets a precedent that we can reasonably expect to see becoming commonplace.
Whether or not ESG reporting is mandatory, the smartest businesses – of all sizes – will act as though it is. It’s only a matter of time before requirements increase, so creating and perfecting optimised frameworks around reporting here will lay the groundwork for future demands.
At the top level, ESG metrics can be considered “Environment, Social and Governance.” These three core considerations represent measures against which businesses are scored and held to account (internally and externally).
Going deeper into those top level categories, ESG metrics will look different for different businesses. Metrics will vary in their relevance and importance, depending on the business’s operation and goals, but ultimately will constitute any factor against which process or impact can be measured. These might include metrics such as emissions, water use, energy consumption, community impact, charitable donations or employee safety records.
Governance in ESG refers to the decision-making factors at play within an organisation. This might include aspects such as policy making, board selection processes, stakeholder management or the use of data.
Good corporate governance is an essential component of ongoing stability and an important factor for risk mitigation within a business. As a result, a good ESG score within the Governance category can increase a company’s appeal to investors, suggesting a low-risk venture with a responsible enterprise. Deviations from ethical corporate governance are typically costly - both in terms of financial penalties, and reputation.
Sustainability contributes to ESG policy and practice. ESG and sustainability are not interchangeable terms, although they are closely linked. ESG policies are typically concerned with risk and return across environmental, social and governance factors, and sustainability policies might be applied across all of these, in order to achieve better, more dependable and long lasting outcomes. Ultimately, a business focusing on its ESG policies cannot do so without carefully considering its approach to sustainability across all aspects of its operation.
CSR stands for Corporate Social Responsibility. It is a business practice which aims to ensure self-imposed regulation and commitment to exerting a more positive influence and impact upon society. It can be applied at a local, national and global scale, and is an increasingly important focus for businesses, as it impacts their employer branding, public perception, staff engagement rate and ESG-rating (which will in turn, attract investment).
CSR activities within a business can address both human and environmental factors. A CSR strategy could include charitable work, including volunteering or donations of products and services, or environmental improvements (such as investing in greener technology or infrastructure).
CSR and ESG are closely linked, but not the same thing. A solid CSR strategy would help contribute to a better ESG rating, by supporting ESG policies relating to a company’s environmental, social and governmental impact.
CSR is a management practice which seeks to improve a company’s social responsibility. When creating a CSR strategy, a business looks for ways in which it can exert a more positive impact on the environments (both human and physical) which it comes into contact with. By creating a raft of dedicated CSR activities, a company can engage its employees, stakeholders and customers on a deeper and more authentic level, winning support and increased levels of loyalty.
CSR is an ongoing process within a business, and something which should evolve alongside the company’s abilities and ambitions. Clear communication of CSR goals is important, and a key component of success within the area.
CSR stands for Corporate Social Responsibility. The phrase relates to a business’s active and self-imposed efforts to have a more positive impact on the environment and society, through improved internal processes and policies.
Social responsibility within the corporate world can be enacted in a wide variety of ways, spanning volunteering, charitable contributions, donation of resources, emergency aid, reduced environmental impact and even supply chain adjustments to ensure mitigated risk or impact.
CSR is an increasingly important aspect of modern business practice. It carries many associated benefits, including better employer branding (attracting talent to vacant positions,) enhanced employee engagement and better public approval.
Having a developed CSR strategy shows that a business is taking active steps to act as a force for good, both within their local community and further afield. Taking CSR initiatives seriously and investing in their success is one of the clearest signals of ethical, responsible practice that a business can send – both internally and externally.
CSR is proving to be an increasingly important consideration within the world of business. Public scrutiny and expectation is this area is at an all time high – and only looks set to increase. The belief that businesses should be a force for good, beyond simply making a profit, is now well established. As a result, and rather ironically, the businesses that fail to invest in strong CSR strategies and initiatives today find themselves at an active disadvantage when it comes to profitability - as public approval and investment interest in businesses who are not known for strong CSR practices wanes.
A CSR policy is a document which sets out a company’s commitment to social responsibility. It will outline the processes and practices that are in place to ensure that their impact upon the environment, society and surrounding communities is a positive one. Additionally, it will set out expectations for ethical practice, considering the human rights of the individuals that come into contact with the business, via the treatment of employees, suppliers, stakeholders and customers alike.
A CSR policy is important because it solidifies a company’s commitment to doing the right thing. By making CSR an officially recognised aspect of business operation, a company has a clear set of guidelines and goals to adhere to.
CSR strategy refers to the considered implementation of ethical, environmental and altruistic practices within a business. A CSR strategy is designed to ensure that the impact a business is having on the world around it is as positive as possible, with damaging consequences mitigated wherever possible.
CSR strategy can be applied to businesses of any size or structure, and give authority and accountability in equal measure, encouraging everyone involved in the business’ operation to act in a more mindful manner. Increasingly, CSR is considered an essential element of broader business strategy, laying the foundations for dependable future growth that factor in businesses’ core values and founding principles.