Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Regional communities need better support, a way that is driven and supported by the community and assisted by governments and corporate programs, but not dependent upon them. Often, funding is taken for granted and poorly administered and leveraged. Many funders are being taken for granted and suffering from ‘funding fatigue’.
Bigger businesses and corporations can play a crucial role through their Corporate Social Responsibility programs. They do this by helping to encourage initiatives with Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and Not-For-Profits (NFPs) in the regional communities they seek to serve.
A community is usually a collection of highly parochial, uniquely different individuals. At the same time, they might share some common wants and needs and suffer similar frustrations and problems. They all see the ‘community’ through their own eyes.
So, working together is challenging without the collective effort of those with shared objectives and aspirations to support them. You rarely change anything by fighting the existing. To change something, build a new model and make the existing obsolete through creativity and innovation.
Rethinking the approach in regional communities.
- Social entrepreneurs.
- Understanding disruption.
- Non-profits have to look at financing differently than traditional businesses would.
- Put some focus on benchmarking.
- Rethinking the approach in regional communities.
- It’s challenging to operate in isolation.
Quotable quotes.
“To live through seemingly impossible situations, you don’t need to be a genius; you need to know what to do and incorporate it into a plan to move forward. It requires seeking advice and not always leaning on your understanding”. Peter Sergeant
“All too often, corporate managers, like city-centric politicians and bureaucrats, are unaware of regional communities and how they work, and in many cases don’t care or bother to find out”. Peter Sergeant