CSR Execs on Trends to Pay Attention to in 2019 [SPONSORED]
Join Catalist’s Brittany Hill for a FREE one-hour webinar on February 27th that will share the findings of reaching out to more than 150 CSR executives and capturing their thoughts, challenges and predictions for the upcoming year. Signup HERE.
At Catalist we like to say that strategy is just opinion until it is grounded in data.
To that end, instead of just giving you our opinion on what is evolving and trending in CSR for 2019 and beyond, we went to the professionals living that work every day.
We reached out to more than 150 CSR executives and interviewed them, capturing their thoughts, challenges and predictions for the upcoming year.
So, what did we find out?
One thing was clear: we all need to buckle up because CSR and social impact work from the corporate sector is accelerating quickly. Because of marketplace expectations, employee desires, generational shifts and global need, CSR activities are ramping up and launching across the whole corporate enterprise, getting more integrated with various departments across the company and in general, getting smarter.
All of this information is wrapped up in Catalist’s new study: The Acceleration of Purpose. It features many insights and takeaways around eight 2019 trends. However, here are our thoughts on the top three takeaways for nonprofit professionals working in the corporate partnerships and sponsorship space to think about.
1. Give special attention to the foundational “trends.” This section covers Data, Impact and ROI. These aren’t trends at all anymore. They have moved beyond that tag and instead are bonafide fundamental CSR tactics. Has your nonprofit embraced them yet?
2. CSR has emerged from the shadows. We are long past the days of when CSR was some nebulous thing “a department over there” was doing in a silo. CSR has come of age and integrating it more deliberately into a company’s culture and throughout every department is a corporate priority. Is your nonprofit ready to talk beyond the cause, and provide marketing, sales, communications and HR teams a value proposition of why aligning with your nonprofit is good for their goals?
3. Gen Z will change CSR. Men and women born from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s are coming of age and entering the workforce. Spending more time on their smartphone than any other generation, defining YouTube as their platform of choice, they are entrepreneurial and tech-savvy and expect companies to support the causes they care about. For Gen Z, buying power is a key vehicle for activism, and they expect brands to give back to communities.
Is your nonprofit prepared to reach out to this coveted demographic either through your existing programs or marketing efforts? And if so, how will you leverage your share of voice with that demographic for your partners?
Be sure to join us on February 27th for the full report.
This post is sponsored by Catalist. Catalist uses smart technology, insightful data and industry expertise to match companies with causes in partnerships that accelerate social change. Learn more about Catalist here.
