Many CEOs are now taking their corporate social responsibility (CSR) seriously, and it is all for the better.
It seems as if we’re going through a transitional phase of some sort, what with all of these CEOs placing their CSRs higher up the ladder, even higher than their company’s needs and wants. They now realize that being honest and transparent with their practices and paying attention to the social consequences of their products and services are just as important in maintaining customer trust. In fact, today’s generation is making sure that these two factors are linked more than ever.
And this transition came at just the nick of time. Sure, a good company should have been socially responsible right from the start. But change is good. Humans are learning animals, and if we’re going to learn something important, we have to learn it by now. The world is in a dire state, and it’s all because of us. The world has endured so much from the time that the first humans learned how to make tools, up until today. And now, it’s starting to show some lasting damages.
Droughts are much more common, many wildlife species are going extinct, climate change is spreading, extreme poverty and hunger are present in many parts of the world, and a lot of communities are experiencing a socioeconomic imbalance. In hindsight, we might have cared a bit too late. But being late is better than never, and if we want to continue on this path as a society, then it’s time we start looking beyond the high-rise buildings.
So the question is, why? Why just now? Why does a capitalist-driven society suddenly want to try and save the world? Of course, this talk about companies thinking long-term and adding sustainability to the equation isn’t entirely new. A quick Google search will give you hundreds upon hundreds of results from years ago. People have been clamoring about this for quite some time now, so why now?
Two things. First, the emerging workforce consists of millennials. They grew up in a damaged world left by previous generations, and they simply don’t agree to any of it. An article by Forbes confirms this, with an increasing number of millennials engaging in philanthropic causes in 2017. They understand the damage, and the responsibility to make sure it doesn’t worsen simply fell on their shoulders. As a result, these millennials are more likely to support corporations who don’t ignore their socioeconomic responsibilities.
The second is the declining confidence that the government will fix all this damage. And even if they do, their actions alone will not save us. It’s time that corporations take matters into their own hands, even if it’s as simple as being more responsible with the social and environmental consequences of their products and services.
It’s high time that companies abandon short-term goals in favor of long-term ones. Sure, the risk is bigger, but if bigger companies like Facebook are making changes and putting this issue as a priority, then an economic shift can easily happen, and more companies will follow suit. In reality, a few years of rallying for social responsibility has barely touched the surface, and CEOs being more socially responsible is the bare minimum. But it’s a start.
Not all small companies are thinking twice about taking the risk though, as a small company has been making significant growth in its sector, thriving in taking risks in pursuit of a lasting positive impact.
Exponential, Inc. (XPO²) is a cause-related technology marketing startup founded by Dom Einhorn, a French-American entrepreneur. And it has solved a simple problem: How do you make social impact and still be profitable enough to continuously operate? It’s quite simple, really. You take cause-driven small to medium-scale nongovernment organizations (NGOs) in need of vital funding and a group of consumers who want to see their money go to a good cause, and act as an intermediary between them,
disrupting the traditional fundraising system in favor of rewards-based crowdfunding campaigns where the benefits and returns go both ways.
XPO2’s Mission to Impact 1 Billion Lives…
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn0OS0cJ-As&t=14s]
Simple, brilliant and effective, XPO2’s NGO crowdfunding platform is basically the best of both worlds: being able to help out NGOs and making every consumer an impact investor who is granted transparency as to where their money goes. All this while the company continuously operates and improves its platform via the “cashless contribution” module. The company also recently announced the launch of its own rewards-based crowdfunding campaign, created to help the young cause-related startup reach more NGOs all around the world.
Of course, it also helps if you have a cause-driven CEO. Raised by a healthy dose of adventure in the form of Jules Verne’s books, Einhorn is a man who thrives in reinvention and disruption of faulty systems, making it his life’s mission to bring about as much positive social change as possible. His company reflects this, as XPO2’s core mission is to bring about the biggest “net social impact.”
In hindsight, CSR should always have been a priority, what with it being the bare minimum. But of course, we have to start somewhere, and CEOs taking their CSRs and companies like XPO2 pushing for it right from the start, are as good a start as any.
