It seems like it was the summer of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) with many companies announcing great initiatives that support communities, employees, and non-profit organizations. Here’s a quick recap of some high profile examples:
- Netflix announced unlimited parental leave for employees (moms and dads) during the first year of their child’s life.
- Gravity Payments announced they would raise the wages of all employees to $70,000/year.
- LinkedIn launched LinkedIn for Non-Profits, dedicated to helping non-profits recruit volunteers and donors.
- Facebook also announced a “donate now” button, available to help organizations raise money right on their Facebook pages.
But there were also some local CSR initiatives that you may not have heard of:
- City National Bank was recognized two ways for its CSR efforts: the LA Business Journal named CNB a top corporate philanthropist and the bank was named a finalist for Employee Volunteer Program of the year for their programs in children’s literacy and the environment. (We’ll find out if they win at the VolunteerMatch summit in December).
- HKS Architects, Penta Building Group, and DataScience were named the best places to work in Los Angeles in the large, medium, and small company categories, respectively. These awards are based on surveys from actual employees on pay and benefits, corporate culture, employee engagement, training and development, and overall satisfaction.
- We saw Los Angeles take on the task of ending homelessness head-on, with the VA announcing it would lease space to non-profits to create new housing for homeless vets.
- The Entertainment Industry Foundation is bringing together ABC, NBC, Fox, and NBC for an education initiative called Think It Up, airing on all networks on Sept 11, 2015. We look forward to seeing this event which promises to support teachers and students in our schools. As part of this program, Staples distributed project funding to all high school teachers in Los Angeles via the non-profit website DonorsChoose.org.
All of these corporate initiatives are a sign of CSR being more a part of day-to-day business rather than just a nice thing to do once in a while. We look forward to seeing more.
