CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) is the notion of businesses being considerate of social and environmental issues, intertwining this consideration within their business practices and operations, and supporting those around them through what was most traditionally, donations or fundraising activities.
Incorporating CSR into events has increased in popularity over the years, with the industry getting creative in replacing outdated team-building formats with experiential activities that instead allow attendees to be part of something that impacts real lives. We’ve rounded up some of our favourite options that can easily be worked into any conference programme to inspire your next agenda.
Supporting the Local Community...
It’s straightforward, but undoubtedly has the biggest impact if your conference programme can make time for an offsite activity. Once you’ve booked your venue, you’re already supporting the local economy, but take it a step further and look into what the community might be trying to improve on, and any initiatives that might allow for corporate volunteering. What’s available will of course depend on the location, but some great examples include:
Sow The City
A Manchester-based social-enterprise working to create community gardens and public green spaces amongst other projects. You can take your conference group to one of their urban greenspaces and spend an afternoon planting trees, clearing land, creating ponds, and making the local community a better place.
Plenty of Plates
An initiative in Vancouver where a volunteer team, led by professional chefs, takes over a community diner that provides daily free meals to those who need it most. Consider replacing one of your evening dinners with this activity if you have a smaller conference group for an experience they’re bound to remember.
Moo Canoes – Canal & River Clean-up
With locations in Hackney and Canary Wharf, this canoe company offers a unique activity, allowing your corporate group to take to the water to protect London’s waterways. This organisation works closely with protective bodies such as ELCAN CIC to deliver 2-hour, half day, or 5-hour options to sustain the local community through environmental clean-up work.
Life’s a Beach
This charity has collected 2,947 kilos of rubbish from public lands across England since their inception, and they organise bespoke clean-ups for corporate groups in your preferred location. Take your conference out for the afternoon so they can make a tangible difference in the environment they’re visiting and leave feeling fulfilled.
Community Impact Programme (CIP)
Banff and Lake Louise Tourism offer business events in the destination a unique programme for their delegates in the form of a pre-paid VISA card that can only be used in the local community. When conferences incorporate free time within their agendas, delegates are encouraged to get out and explore the picturesque town, spending with local small-town businesses. On top of this, the tourism bureau will also make a donation to a local charity of the conference’s choosing when they sign up to the CIP initiative. Consider reaching out to the local tourism bureau where your conference is being held to see if they can host anything similar.
Weather’s not on your side? Support far & wide from inside your venue...
School Supply Scramble
Led by Outback Teambuilding, this indoor challenge sees groups compete in challenges to win school supplies and materials needed to fill school bags. Once the bags are completed, they are given to local schools or charities to donate to children who are in need of this vital support.
Give a Hand & Water Works
These activities support communities and individuals in need all over the world, in what is a truly emotional and impactful activity.
Give a Hand sees groups build prosthetic hands in a challenging engineering task that are then sent to adults and children in developing countries, where limbs are lost due to operational malpractice in factories or on farms.
Water Works is a programme in which groups build real water filtration systems that can save the lives of entire communities in developing countries.
In both activities your group will be looked after by Lightbulb teams and shown real footage of how this initiative has changed lives already, and the good your conference will be doing.
Dog Kennel Construction
After being provided with all the instructions and materials needed, groups are tasked with building dog kennels that are then donated to local shelters that often struggle to fund or accommodate the volume of animals being rescued.
Whilst this particular example is focused in Portugal, animal charities across the globe face similar needs, so always ask your event agency what options are available in your event destination.
Food Drive
A simple but often overlooked option is to ask your delegates to bring items to donate to a local food bank. Reach out to an organisation location to your host destination and get a list of items they’re currently in need of, and share this with your delegates in all pre-event communications. You could ask certain groups of delegates for different items that then align with a seating plan or breakout groups to extend the importance of contributing to the drive.
Invite a Local Charity to Participate
Opening the door to opportunity with a local charity could make a huge difference during your conference. You may have some agenda space perhaps during the day, or are planning to organise a themed evening one of the nights, so open up a collaborative conversation to see where the charity may find value in participating. They may want to host an art auction during your dinner to raise funds, and as an organisation you could vow to match all donations, or perhaps they would simply benefit from using a breakout room on a day it’s being left empty for their own donor meetings or operations.
Ultimately, the name of the game is leaving the world a little bit better than how you found it. This is true for how businesses should be operating, so think no different for your conference and how you can leave a lasting, positive, and sustainable legacy behind, whether that’s felt locally, or across the globe.
About the author:
Olivia Salvage is a content writer and sustainable event manager. It didn’t take long until Olivia saw the wasteful nature of events in everything from food to printed collateral, and she began educating herself on sustainable solutions and practices to implement within her projects. Having since completed sustainable certificates, Olivia now considers sustainability a true passion and continues to research ways to bring positive change to her roles.