When talking about financial education or
social responsibility, a low profile is the best way to fail in reaching the
goals.
In our last post we remarked that CSR cannot be
approached as a cosmetic exercise or a mere declaration of intent. Today, easy
access to huge amount of information helps us notice when an initiative is a
bubble with nothing in it and only pursues commercial objectives. All smoke and
mirrors: that’s not true CSR but just social marketing. In the long term (and
probably in the short term as well) it can be highly damaging to the company in
terms of credibility. Instead of social reputation, the company gets back skepticism,
indifference or, in the worst scenario, distrust.
However, if the company is up to a really good
Corporate Social Responsibility project, proper outreach is not only convenient
but a key issue to accomplish the goals. Genuine CSR actions are aimed at real
people and are meant to encourage changes; therefore it is essential for
success to reach the target groups and motivate them to tackle the required
actions.
Unfortunately, financial education provides us
with a good example of the opposite situation: there are a large number of quality
projects fading away because the target groups are not even aware of their
existence. Public agencies and private companies develop Internet sites,
organize courses and seminars, give financial support for a range of research
and studies on people’s financial literacy… but, at the end of the day, the
outreach and effectiveness of those actions are far below expectations. Maybe a
creative and well designed communication is the missing element for bridging
the gap between well-intentioned purposes and real accomplishments.
In short, a good communication strategy is not only essential but beneficial for all parties: on one hand, it facilitates social progress by improving the actions' outreach and effectiveness; on the other, it allows companies to get a well-deserved reputation as community leaders.
