Why bother?

1. As companies develop more professional community programmes and communicate their policies to wider audiences, more and more shareholders are looking at the company’s reputation, especially from an ethical viewpoint. This trend is slowly influencing institutional shareholders, proving that a good corporate reputation for serving the community can have a beneficial impact on the share price.

2. Furthermore, educational development (‘from the cradle to the grave’) concepts are now being developed to encompass the whole community, since properly trained and developed workforce is seen as being crucial for any company’s future. A community relations programme can benefit this development in two ways. The first is by education based sponsorships which create awareness in local schools and/or are linked to the national curriculum, which helps establish a company as a desirable employer with resultant potential recruitment opportunities. Secondly, they can provide opportunities for employees to develop their skills by working with local schools on schemes such as mentoring, work shadowing or mock interviewing.

3. Likewise, serving the local community and the impact of its presence on local employment and economic regeneraton is a frequently used defence during a takeover. This can help to focus the support of the local media, MPs and other key opinion formers. It is crucial that target audiences are already aware of your existing work and are suitably briefed in order to quickly support your actions, based on knowledge and facts. If a story breaks in the local media, it is the first two hours which are the most important, when news editors are compiling background reports and interviews. If they ask the views of (say) local MP, they may be put in a position where they have to instantly respond. If you are regularly updating your local MP about your involvement in their constituency, they will be able to respond in a far more knowledgeable and supportive way.

4. A final reason is that a positive community involvement strategy is now being more widely acknowledged as a fundamental part of a business excellence programme. For instance, the influential European Foundation for Quality Management model has nine determinants for recognizing and assessing total quality management, one of which is the impact company has on society.