How to Keep Your CSR Initiatives Aligned

Businesses are increasingly taking a stand on social issues, a phenomenon known as brand activism. While brand activism itself isn’t new, increased access to information combined with growing political polarization introduces new risks for companies that decide to take a stand today. 

Brand activism usually overlaps with a company’s embrace of corporate social responsibility (CSR), a management philosophy that helps businesses operate in ways that enhance rather than degrade society and the environment. CSR demands that business look beyond profit alone and begin considering their impact on the planet and society at large. 

More and more, CSR is something businesses can’t afford to ignore. According to the 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer, an annual survey of consumer sentiment, 52% of respondents feel that businesses are not doing enough to address climate change, while 49% think that more needs to be done to address economic inequality. Furthermore, the social unrest of 2020 and global turmoil of 2022 has inspired more businesses to take a stand with their actions and deeds.  

But the willingness to take a stand on social or political issues has also caused problems for companies when their social advocacy or messaging is inconsistent with their political or financial actions. For instance, Match Group, which operates dating sites such as, Tinder and OK Cupid, established a fund to cover the costs of out-of-state abortions after Texas banned most abortions in 2021 – only to experience blowback after it was reported that in 2021 the company also donated $137,000 to the Republican Attorneys General Association, which played a role in the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. Another prominent example from 2022 emerged when it was reported that Disney, a long-time advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, was found to donating to legislators in Florida who have proven to be hostile to the LGBTQ+ community.  

These organizations, and many like them, have experienced CSR blind spots. A CSR blind spot happens when: 

• A company’s actions do not align with its values 
• Its values are poorly defined, leading to a corporate free-for-all 
• Its internal stakeholders – HR, Marketing, PR, IR, and Government Relations – are operating out of sync, usually because they are trying to manage stakeholders with conflicting agendas 

How can a company prevent these blind spots from happening? 

Understand Your Values and How to Articulate Them 

Values are important because they define what a company stands for. They need to define all your actions, from your PR to your government affairs. Many brands stumble either because they have not defined their values (which leaves them rudderless) or because they’ve not figured out how to articulate them clearly (which creates inconsistency in words and actions). 

Some companies may find their corporate values conflict with the potential for brand activism. If that’s the case, it may be best to steer clear of brand activism until your values support it – or risk being called out for corporate hypocrisy.  For other companies, a new emphasis on values such as diversity and inclusion may align well with the values of their key stakeholders but be difficult to articulate consistently. 

In fact, a survey that Investis Digital recently conducted with Forrester Consulting revealed that only 25% of businesses rate themselves as very effective at consistently managing their brand values across digital channels. And nearly 40% of businesses said they fail to actively manage their corporate brands through digital channels. 

Define a Connected Content Approach 

Brands that clearly and consistently communicate their values experience business benefits such as from improved reputation and improved retention of employees, customers and shareholders. According to the study with Forrester, more than half of businesses see an improved reputation as a result of consistently communicating their brand values, and about half see an increase in sales or revenue. 

The key to success is defining a Connected Content approach that integrates CSR with all aspects of the organization, instead of viewing CSR as a standalone responsibility of one team. Connected Content creates an integrated communications approach that covers every relevant touchpoint across stakeholder groups and channels and delivers against measurable goals such as improvements in customer sentiment.  

A Connected Content approach builds trust through clear, consistent communications and actions that link CSR to crucial functions, such as reputation management, recruitment, investor relations, customer service, and government affairs.   

Measure and Report on Progress 

For stakeholders to believe your words and trust the actions you say you're taking, you need to track, measure and report on progress. Especially when a company has work to do to achieve holistic alignment across functions (and their associated words and actions), transparency and substantial progress reporting are key to showing you walk the talk, even if you need to start with baby steps.  

Measuring and reporting is part of taking a proactive approach to CSR – treating CSR as a series of actions tied to specific business outcomes as opposed to reacting to the crisis of the day. What you measure will depend on the stance you’ve taken – for example, if DE&I is a key initiative, you may want to track and measure progress in diversity hiring, recruitment and advancement, especially into leadership positions. 

Connect Your Internal Stakeholders Together 

Connected Content requires that a business’s internal teams collaborate to build trust with all stakeholders – not once but all year-round. The converging forces of change are getting too complicated and intertwined for any single team or person to communicate a business’s change journey to its multiple stakeholders.  

Building trust with employees, shareholders, customers, media, regulators, and other stakeholders means managing many moving parts – an area many companies continue to stumble. Siloed companies can too easily overlook conflicting actions and communications with inconsistent messages being shared across different internal or external stakeholder groups.  

In days past, businesses sought to align a limited number of stakeholders – say, IR and PR. But what’s changed is that businesses are being increasingly defined by their actions, in addition to their narrative. When the two are not aligned, the business’s reputation suffers. Where does the disconnect happen? Usually with actions that happen outside IR or PR. This is why all functions across the business need to be aligned. All business units – including corporate comms, marketing, sales, finance, recruiting, government affairs, and executive leadership – need to align their brand activism strategies and messages around a Connected Content approach. The connected team needs both CEO support and accountability to the CEO to function. 

It might seem counterintuitive to look inward first in order to align outward actions. But only by looking inside the company and fostering alignment across a brand’s key stakeholders, messages, and Initiatives can a business build trust with both words and actions that are an authentic reflection of its values and culture.  

Take the Long View 

When a business lands itself in hot water for a controversial political contribution, its reaction might be to suspend the contributions only to quietly reinstate them months down the road.” But this strategy will not work in an always on world. If you see a disconnect between your actions and your values, then fix it, period. Don’t try to have it both ways. Doing so may require time and significant change – the key is being transparent with your audiences about the steps you are taking over time, not denying, deflecting, obscuring or backtracking those steps.  

Just as social and political change takes time, so too does corporate alignment. If your company decides brand activism is an important part of your identity, culture and values, you must be honest, consistent and transparent about your blind spots and what you are doing to correct them. Otherwise, you risk ongoing reputational crises when someone else notices and calls you out. 

Contact Investis Digital 

Investis Digital helps companies align CSR with their entire business via Connected Content. We unite compelling communications, intelligent digital experiences and performance marketing to help more than 1,600 global companies build deeper connections with audiences and drive business performance. Contact us to learn how we can help you, and download our report Building Trust through the 4Rs: Responsibility, Reputation, Recruitment, and Reach for more insight.