Spin-Off Seeks Community Involvement

Situation

CCO Client A spun-off from a successful global manufacturing company and found itself challenged to establish its own corporate presence in communities where its plants operate. Without a dedicated and experienced community affairs staff or significant resources to invest in building a global citizenship program, Client A didn't know where to begin and contacted Corporate Community Outsourcing for direction.

CCO was engaged to help the new company understand community needs at plant locations and to design a community program that could be easily implemented without full-time professional support and a lot of financial resources. The program would also need to be scalable to accommodate company growth.

Action

CCO began the project by conducting a global assessment to gain an understanding of community activities and needs at each of the local plants. The results showed the company was more involved than initially thought: investments in local charities and community initiatives were being made and employees and executives were involved in community service. The assessment also revealed a need for standardized gift tracking and reporting guidelines.

Solution

Based on the assessment results and considering the Client's limited resources, CCO focused on repackaging current community activities under a unifying strategy. The result was a comprehensive, branded, global citizenship program supported by three key initiatives: a global recycling initiative; local grant initiatives, and an employee engagement program.

The global recycling initiative was designed to support the company's commitment to aluminum recycling. Through the assessment process, CCO identified common themes among current local community activities and then crafted guidelines to support and encourage giving within the themes. To round out the program, CCO developed a "Dollars for Doers" program to encourage employee involvement and support of the company's newly defined community priorities.

In addition to establishing program parameters and creating a program brand, CCO developed a toolkit for distribution to local plants and worked with Client A to build a web-based grant tracking system. CCO also helped Client A activate its community involvement in Atlanta, including identifying prospective nonprofit partners and engaging executives on nonprofit boards - all in synch with the new guidelines.

Beyond the program design, CCO led Client A through the development of a Community Affairs department, including defining the department structure and key responsibilities, identifying administrative systems and policies, and providing job descriptions for potential staff positions.