From 2008 to 2013, like a lot of other people, I experienced personal challenges due to the great recession and its fallout. I struggled to find work, watched helplessly as my mother passed away, and became closely acquainted with hunger and despair. As a down-on-my-luck, unpaid intern, I even found myself searching the streets of San Francisco for a spot to sleep.
Now that I work in “corporate social responsibility,” I often reflect on those years because those experiences helped shape my vision of a better world and inspired my desire to help build it.
Corporate social responsibility comprises an increasingly complex web of activities that include environmental sustainability efforts (like conservation LEED certifications for buildings, measuring carbon footprints, etc.), fair labor practices (employee well-being, fair pay, and diversity, equity, and inclusion), and community investments (employee giving and volunteering, matching gifts, impact investing, and grant making).
Lately many in corporate social responsibility are working to remove barriers that separate the various CSR efforts and to unite the people within companies who lead them. At the same time, there is a growing movement that calls on companies to practice “stakeholder capitalism” to make doing good a part of everyday business. Not surprisingly, diversity, equity, and inclusion, work has surged in the past year as well.
For me, becoming part of this work was extremely difficult: I had to take an unpaid internship in one of the world’s most expensive cities.
I firmly believe that we at Salesforce.org and those working in philanthropy at other companies can advance equity and encourage our clients, grantees, and customers to do the same. Here are several ways companies can make their philanthropy more equitable.
Make sure young people of color know about your work.
Ask questions such as: Do young people of color in my community know this work exists? Do they know people are working on a vision that will affect their world, that many of those people get paid to do this work?
Even with a graduate degree in international development and economics, I didn’t know these things when I entered the work force. To advance equity, we must inform people with diverse backgrounds about CSR opportunities and inspire them to join in, to be part of shaping a better world and improving the communities we share.
Reduce barriers that prevent racially and economically diverse people from applying for jobs and internships.
For me, becoming part of this work was extremely difficult: I had to take an unpaid internship in one of the world’s most expensive cities. I went hungry supporting teams at a nonprofit in San Francisco while I researched and prepared briefs on the CSR practices of companies like Cisco and Google. I vetted potential nonprofit partners and listened in on calls with them, yet I also walked the streets of the city in despair, unable to afford a train ticket home to a couch in the South Bay, just an hour away. These are massive obstacles that must be removed so more racially and economically diverse people can join this field.
Broaden the definition of CSR’s impact.
Previously, a company’s grant making was viewed as its primary means of effecting positive change in a community. Now, however, companies may factor employees serving as volunteers or donors into their measure of social impact. Companies may consider providing pro bono employee-volunteers to advise vendors owned by people of color to help their businesses grow. And many companies view environmental practices, such as reducing their carbon footprint, as a part of their mission to advance social good.
This broader view of CSR recognizes the scope of the challenges we face as a society and allows more diverse voices within our communities to participate in important conversations. We need new perspectives, skills, and approaches to meet long-known and newly identified needs.
We need new perspectives, skills, and approaches to meet long-known and newly identified needs.
An example of an expanded notion of CSR: In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, Uber and DoorDash used their apps to showcase minority-owned businesses. Upon opening the app, users were invited to order from nearby Black-owned restaurants. Traditionally, supporting other businesses was not part of a company’s social-impact strategy. However, this effort channeled millions of dollars to Black-owned restaurants, businesses, entrepreneurs, and communities of color. Those dollars, when generated in large enough quantities, can help remedy systemic wealth inequalities. Plus, successful entrepreneurs are potential philanthropists we can involve in CSR efforts as donors, volunteers, even foundation founders.
Promote your philanthropy in new places.
Like many, I’ve been a speaker at the Association of Corporate Citizenship Professionals conference and at big events like SXSW. However, we must go beyond those high-profile events and think about increasing our visibility among groups that are too often overlooked.
For example, I mentored students at Thurgood Marshall Academy in Washington, D.C. When I told the student I was helping and his friends that I worked in corporate social responsibility, I got blank stares. Yet I knew CSR programs supported many of the programs at the school as well as scholarships they might seek.
Since then, I’ve shared my story and professional experience in nontraditional settings. I talk about my book, Dreams Deferred: Recession, Struggle, and the Quest for a Better World, and my experiences with young men and women in my community and to a Zoom classroom of teenagers. I help small nonprofits led by founders of color understand what a company might seek in a nonprofit partner.
Share diversity data broadly and encourage action.
Gathering data is just the beginning. Don’t simply share diversity data with executives so you can meet “environmental, social, and governance” standards and crow about that in an annual report. Share diversity data broadly — with employees, suppliers, partners, and shareholders —and go a step further. Compare the data side-by-side with your diversity goals and publish that comparison publicly. Then give people a chance to join you in supporting underrepresented groups through employee-engagement campaigns, grant making, or helping underrepresented groups build capacity in other ways.
Engage and support people of diverse backgrounds.
Some companies establish employee resource groups to provide a safe space for diverse employees to network and attract more employees from similar backgrounds.
Other companies use Employee Assistance Programs, which are registered nonprofits with a 501(c)(3) status, to accept donations to support employees when disasters such as wildfires, floods, and hurricanes strike.
All companies should promote internships (ideally paid or else they perpetuate inequities) and job opportunities to diverse candidates. We know that product teams in technology build better products when they are diverse and that public-sector institutions perform better when diverse perspectives are shared. The same is true for CSR.
As we approach the first anniversary of George Floyd’s murder, many of us wonder whether our national reckoning with racial injustice will lead to lasting change.
I offer one simple way those working in CSR will know when it is more equitable. There won’t be another story like mine.
