Building Hyperlocal CSR Programs in a Global Community

Overview

Many clients using CSRconnect have offices located all over the world with employees who are eager to engage in their communities. The companies who utilize “international ambassadors” to build hyperlocal communities are 14% more engaged in giving and volunteering. This article will dive into tactics for empowering ambassadors to achieve similar results.

Challenges

For clients with international corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs, the biggest struggle typically comes when attempting to engage employees in different regions around the world. Cultural differences, community variations, and language barriers all make it difficult for CSR directors to effectively engage an international community. Local ambassadors help bridge the gap in all of those areas but to do so efficiently they require guidance and a steady stream of communication from a CSR director to be effective.

Bridging the Gap

Whether called international ambassadors or regional champions, they all play the same role: assist the CSR director by using their local expertise to further the program goals. Ambassadors are most successful when they are empowered by:

• Technology that supports global programs
• Training session on product features and best practices
• A centralized resource for communication

Global CSR Technology

It’s important to choose a CSR partner that has the technology to help you build a program that is global by design.  The CSRconnect platform for employee engagement includes features like segmentation and Engagement Elements. Features like segmentation allows you to group employees by region so that you can configure their program parameters differently and serve them relevant content. With Engagement Elements, you can call attention to regionally specific information such as a listing of international charities or providing relief for an overseas disaster. This is just a snapshot of the platform tools, not to mention currency conversion and language translations, which are baked into CSRconnect.

Training for Ambassadors

A proven strategy to bridge the gap overseas is to provide training sessions before the launch of each new initiative to educate ambassadors on goals, new tools, reporting, and strategies. Typically, these training sessions include strategies for promoting the campaigns internally, reaching out to get local nonprofits involved, and tips for setting up volunteer events that employees can engage with.

Communication Resources

International ambassadors are volunteers who are effective when they are informed on the campaign and programs. These volunteers need support with communication and a centralized location for resources. It’s recommended to create a place where ambassadors can get all the program guidelines, communication email templates, promotional content, etc. By building this centralized resource location, ambassadors can easily take action to engage employees within their local community.

Fueling the Workforce

Since international success is built so strongly on ambassadors, how to recruit and motivate these volunteers is always a question that we get. We recommend rewarding ambassadors with extra volunteer time off or company dollars to donate to their favorite cause. YourCause clients can use tools like incentives in CSRconnect.

Results

Employee engagement for companies with international ambassadors is dramatically higher. In 2016 alone, the international communities with ambassadors had an average engagement rate of 27% versus only 13% of those without. YourCause is passionate about helping companies increase global engagement, and that starts with ambassadors who are informed on how to build hyperlocal communities in their region.