Afternoon all – Rob here. While our regular blogger Eleanor is taking a well earned holiday, I suspect she’ll be enjoying it from an indoor rather than outdoor perspective if the weather here is anything to go by! In fact, looking outside from within is our theme for this week’s blog.

Responsibilities.  It’s not outlandish to think that a company holds these to their board, to their shareholders and of course, to their people.  There do remain however, one set of corporate responsibilities that despite affecting the largest group of people, perhaps don’t always receive due attention.

When companies plan for the future, they are often simply given lip service, or are even pushed to the back of people’s minds and conveniently forgotten.  These are your corporate social responsibilities (CSR), or to take a more Victorian mentality, what could be considered simply a part of a person’s civic duties displayed through sound business ethics.

Take a look outside.  You’re most likely based within a clear community, but can you say that you’re truly a part of it?  Do you contribute to the wider group of ‘stakeholders’ in society?  At Cullen Scholefield, going above and beyond the minimum of ‘CSR compliance’ is something that we believe is essential and can be achieved more easily than many people might think.

By expanding your actions out into the community, you can drive both business growth and more general societal wellbeing at the same time.  In our case, we found our outlet for community outreach within the local business association.  As a founding member, our MD Maureen has for the last few years had a second life as Chair of the Haywards Heath and District Business Association.

This group aims to maintain a vibrant commercial scene in the community and its members range from the largest employers in town, to all variety of small one man band businesses.  The upcoming HHDBA Conference, which we are sponsoring, is a prime example of this – what’s good for business generally is more often than not, good for maintaining an active local social community and needless to say, good for your own organisation.

But that doesn’t mean that corporate outreach has to take a purely businesslike focus either – in the past, the annual Haywards Heath Bike Ride has provided a fantastic sponsorship opportunity, allowing us to support the event and put back into the community, while also maintaining our public profile.

Another local example is a local charity (It’s Magic Events) that has frequently gone above and beyond what might be considered pure business objectives.  Their annual concerts, while financially successful, also became focal points of the Haywards Heath social calendar, attracting performers from one end of the musical spectrum to the other (Katherine Jenkins to Peter Andre!).

The results of good corporate social responsibility are not always directly or immediately measurable, but they may be wider ranging than you think!

How do you get involved within your local community? Let us know in the comments or come along to one of our upcoming Circle of Peers events and have a chat with us about what you can do.