CSR is a huge deal for British communications agencies. It is incumbent on us to put something back into society - in addition to being one of the country’s few world-leading sectors, paying masses of tax, and generally having liberal employment policies which put the rest of the private sector to shame. And, truth is, it really is incumbent on us. Because if the ‘big society’ is going to work, then we all have to do something. But what?
The general answer is to do work for free for good causes. Sounds plausible. But, no. I used to work in charities. We benefitted from plenty of pro-bono work. Usually an opportunity for the least experienced and talented people to get a go at running an account where they can’t do any commercial damage – which showed in some of the appalling work we received. And it still took a lot of our internal resources to manage this even though we weren’t paying. Add to this that the majority of causes I would want to support need our services like a fish needs a bicycle. There has to be a better way.
And there is. Catalysis is planning to support our staff in volunteering– either to read to children at the local priamary school, or to be mentors at a charity helping local disadvantaged kids (The wonderful http://www.chanceuk.com/). What do you think? What should agencies do?