subscribe by email
Many companies striving to be good corporate citizens today face an internal tug of war between giving attention to community initiatives that address social problems and the growing demand to make environmental issues paramount.
Boston College Center releases profile of today’s corporate citizenship leaders
By Allison Lee, Senior Research Associate, Boston College Center
The U.S. director of corporate citizenship at National Grid holds a staff meeting with her regional direct reports. The vice president, corporate social responsibility, of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters takes a networking call with a colleague working on Capitol Hill. The charitable programs assistant at New Balance Athletic Shoe orders shoes for gift certificates, finalizes letters to nonprofit organizations, and sends out a few product donations. The corporate citizenship/giving specialist at Underwriters Laboratories researches volunteer opportunities for employees.
This is just a sampling of days in the lives of corporate citizenship professionals, part of the wide variety of work being done in the field. The Center’s newest report, the “Profile of the Profession 2010, Corporate citizenship leaders for today and tomorrow”, offers a snapshot of current corporate citizenship professionals and the work they do. It explores the details of their roles, responsibilities, challenges and successes. Education, training, professional experience, salaries and benefits are also examined. The information in this report was gathered directly from a survey of 650 corporate citizenship professionals.
The report delivers answers to questions, such as:
- What is the job of corporate citizenship professionals?
- Where are they in the company?
- What are their backgrounds?
- What does it take to succeed?
- What are the rewards of the profession?
Among the key findings of the survey is how central relationships are to succeeding in the profession. Building internal partnerships with other departments (86.3 percent), and building relationships with external stakeholders (84.2 percent), are most frequently cited by survey respondents as part their job responsibilities. The survey also finds leadership is essential to the job, as the top three skills cited by respondents as the most critical to success were the ability to influence, leading/motivating others, and network building.
We’re very excited to be presenting this timely and informative data. Center members can get the full snapshot by viewing the Profile of the Profession 2010 report. A two-page summary of the survey’s Key Findings is also available.
