Supporting the Sustainable Development Goals
Background
Members of the United Nations adopted a shared blueprint for prosperity for people and the planet known as the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. This blueprint includes an urgent call to action by all countries to form a global partnership that recognizes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty and other deprivations while tackling climate change and working to preserve our natural resources. The UN put measurements in place to determine what needs to be achieved and how to track the progress toward the target completion date of 2030.1
This page dives into CSR alignment with the SDGs, how we’re working to build tools that help support impact reporting and measurement and includes resources along the way.
“The SDGs are a common language and shared purpose for addressing the world’s most urgent sustainability challenges and creating a better future for all.”
CSR Alignment with the SDGs
Over 12,000 companies based in over 160 countries in nearly every sector have committed to aligning strategies and operations that advance these societal goals.2 Responsible business goes beyond sustainable practices and creates the opportunity to support real social change essential to achieving the SDGs. The United Nations has a landing page full of resources on how company’s can support the advancement of each of the 17 goals. The section for each goal starts with the why behind providing support and then includes a framework for impact investing, a SDG compass and matrix.
Business leaders interested in helping meet the SDGs should consider embedding support for the goals as part of their organization’s culture, values and employee engagement.3 The 2019 PwC Reporting challenge showed that 72% of companies mentioned the SDGs in their annual reporting and 25% of companies included the SDGs in their published business strategy. We’ve rounded up a few of our favorite examples of how companies in the Global Good Network™ support the SDGs.
*The Global Good Network is how we refer to our client base of over 400 organizations.
PwC also created a business reporting analysis guide that provides examples of business actions that could help achieve each target. For example, under Goal 1. No Poverty – Target 1, possible relevant business actions include:
- Ensuring equal access to company resources
- Paying employees a living wage
- Paying fair prices to all suppliers
This guide can be used as a great jumping off point to map your current business strategies to each of the goals and see where there are gaps to provide support.
Working Together to Align to the SDGs
We recognize that these issues facing our world today are interconnected and cannot be solved without collectively working toward progress on all. YourCause and Blackbaud have been developing tools and resources for nonprofits and companies to better plan and focus their efforts towards reaching the SDGs.
YourCause Global Goals Gateway for Nonprofits
YourCause was the first CSR technology provider to integrate the SDGs into its nonprofit database NPOconnect. Nonprofit organizations can use the Global Goals Gateway to align their efforts to the SDGs. Organizations can select which goals they identify with and specify the individual measures and triggers within each goal that they impact.
How does the Global Goals Gateway connect nonprofits to companies?
This enables employees to search and filter giving and volunteering opportunities by SDGs within our employee engagement platform, CSRconnect. Watch the short clip of the user interface for an employee completing a search for organizations that align to an SDG.
If you are a nonprofit, sign in to NPOconnect to declare your organization’s support for the Global Goals now!
Blackbaud Institute SDG Connector Tool
The Blackbaud Institute SDG Connector is a resource to simplify and provide an answer to the question “how do we make the world a better place?” While we know there is no single, simple answer to that question, there are helpful steps everyone can take to help achieve the SDGs. It is our hope that bringing attention to these goals can guide change and redefine the daunting task of “making the world a better place.”
The tool provides a framework for aligning SDGs by NTEE code, NAICS and INCPO. This tool was created with the help of our partners: Council on Foundations, Candid, and Global Impact, who share our goal of seeing the implementation and success of the SDGs to provide a better future for all.
Why Reporting Matters
Reporting is just one way to move the actions of nonprofits and the resources of the people into the same direction. Ultimately, the need to report the impact of donations and volunteerism is going to continue to rise. To appeal to more informed donors, organizations will need to reveal whether they are hitting their goals and how they plan to focus their efforts going forward. By reporting to the donor base, they build a rapport that could translate to a massive increase in donations and volunteerism.
Establishing partnerships between nonprofits and corporations allows for more constructive reporting to be created so impact information can be transmitted fluidly. Features like the Global Goals Gateway is one connection point for companies and nonprofits. We encourage companies to reach out to their nonprofit partners to fill out their profile for the Global Goals.
Tools for Reporting
CSRconnect Reporting Dashboard
CSRconnect includes several reporting features for companies to gain the insights needed to drive impact and make strategic program decisions. We continue to invest in helping companies align to the SDGs and CSRconnect now offers a standard dashboard in ad-hoc reporting that allows companies to view giving and volunteering data as it relates to the SDGs for each charity impacted by their community activity.
To make this robust data possible, we used the mapping framework developed by the Blackbaud Institute SDG Connector Tool. The reporting dashboard in CSRconnect automatically aligns charities with one primary SDG based on NTEE code.
Measuring Social Influence
Our partner True Impact through a framework focused on optimizing corporate philanthropy in areas such as employee volunteer programs can provide CSR professionals with data and results surrounding the SDGs. Their guide “Measuring the Social Impact of Employee Volunteer Programs on The Sustainable Development Goals” provides 4 steps to help CSR professionals with reporting on SDGs.
- Gather Program Outcomes and Costs
- Monetize your volunteerism
- Calculate the portion of social impact your company can claim
- Align to SDGs
Content Roundup
Follow our blog category Impact Reporting as we continue to post articles and resources that provide CSR professionals with thought leadership and insights.
References:
- https://sdgs.un.org/goals
- https://www.unglobalcompact.org/participation
- https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/services/sustainability/sustainable-development-goals/business-reporting-on-the-sdgs.html