Tools to measure the impact of corporate giving?
December 3, 2014 1:56 PM Subscribe
What tools or services exist to measure the bottom-line impact of corporate giving on 1) customers and 2) employees?
As a made-up example, if Super Mega Corp gave $250MM to 10,000 non-profits last year, such a tool/service/organization would provide data analytics that demonstrate measurable impact, such as:
- Customer loyalty increased 5%, sales increased 2%, etc.
- Employee satisfaction improved 18%, employee retention improved 10%, etc.
To be clear, I am not looking for tools that provide numbers without measuring their impact, so things like "Super Mega Corp's $1MM donation to the Mayo Clinic got 10k Twitter mentions" are out.
I would also be thankful for studies that link corporate giving to bottom line impact, or resources that discuss how such a thing can be measured.
I know I might be looking for a unicorn but any pointers are appreciated. Thank you.
As a made-up example, if Super Mega Corp gave $250MM to 10,000 non-profits last year, such a tool/service/organization would provide data analytics that demonstrate measurable impact, such as:
- Customer loyalty increased 5%, sales increased 2%, etc.
- Employee satisfaction improved 18%, employee retention improved 10%, etc.
To be clear, I am not looking for tools that provide numbers without measuring their impact, so things like "Super Mega Corp's $1MM donation to the Mayo Clinic got 10k Twitter mentions" are out.
I would also be thankful for studies that link corporate giving to bottom line impact, or resources that discuss how such a thing can be measured.
I know I might be looking for a unicorn but any pointers are appreciated. Thank you.
So three corporate sponsors of ours have different approaches - one is very large and has their own CSR department and they view the volunteering and donation stuff as an extension of HR to improve staff morale; it's not publicized outside of the organisation but it heavily pushed within the organisation and they do qualitative and quantitative internal feedback with people involved to see which CSR programs got the best buzz from employees. (I think it's surveys and HR forms and $ amounts donated plus volunteer hours tracked, which can be compared to employee retention etc.)
Another place is using us as a public-facing CSR and they are measuring the impact by media mentions and sales of a particular product tied to us, compared to similar past campaigns for other orgs. They're
Another place is just starting out so we would be their first CSR project and when I asked about metrics, they basically went we have none. They are considering doing a baseline before the CSR relationship starts so they can compare afterwards, but for a relatively large organisation, they are very bottomline and initially only considered the $ amount raised. It's to my organisation's benefit to get them to also take into account employee satisfaction, positive press etc, but that's not always a given with even large organisations.
Actually another org I'm thinking of did a big event we were involved in specifically for their C-level staff to volunteer with as a way to get them to network and volunteer effectively under their organisation's name. They had almost zero external press or prestige from it, the HR C-level person organising the event said it was more about getting the senior staff to feel intensely involved and compassionate in a way they could manage around their schedules, not a profit-driven exercise but about HR-driven employee retention.
Your best bet would be to interview people who do CSR for a large business.
posted by viggorlijah at 5:18 AM on December 4, 2014
Another place is using us as a public-facing CSR and they are measuring the impact by media mentions and sales of a particular product tied to us, compared to similar past campaigns for other orgs. They're
Another place is just starting out so we would be their first CSR project and when I asked about metrics, they basically went we have none. They are considering doing a baseline before the CSR relationship starts so they can compare afterwards, but for a relatively large organisation, they are very bottomline and initially only considered the $ amount raised. It's to my organisation's benefit to get them to also take into account employee satisfaction, positive press etc, but that's not always a given with even large organisations.
Actually another org I'm thinking of did a big event we were involved in specifically for their C-level staff to volunteer with as a way to get them to network and volunteer effectively under their organisation's name. They had almost zero external press or prestige from it, the HR C-level person organising the event said it was more about getting the senior staff to feel intensely involved and compassionate in a way they could manage around their schedules, not a profit-driven exercise but about HR-driven employee retention.
Your best bet would be to interview people who do CSR for a large business.
posted by viggorlijah at 5:18 AM on December 4, 2014
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I would not be surprised if there were in-house methods for calculating these numbers, depending on the specific organization.
If I were tasked with discovering these numbers, my first step would be to network to expensive consultants in the field of evaluation, for example through the American Evaluation Association.
posted by rebent at 2:14 PM on December 3, 2014 [1 favorite]