Business Services
Why Social Impact is a Game-Changer for Businesses
Small and family-owned businesses often lack access to reputable institutions that can help them measure and enhance their positive social, environmental, and economic contributions. The Gianneschi Center for Social Impact in Business (CSUF) provides businesses with the tools and expertise needed to strengthen community connections, support regulatory compliance and drive long-term success.
There are two ways of looking at this – moral (the right thing to do) or instrumental (what you can gain from it). The moral argument is that businesses, as members of society, have certain obligations and responsibilities like any member of society. A lot of corporate leaders, business professionals, and business owners find that their businesses should represent and behave according to the social values they hold dear. If you are already doing the right thing or intend to do it but do not know how, you deserve to be recognized, encouraged, and supported.
On the other hand, the instrumental argument is that businesses may lose opportunities or face unseen threats if they ignore their social impact. Opportunities exist in the form of new target customer groups that are increasingly conscious of these issues and gravitate towards companies that demonstrate them. These very groups can become a threat by boycotting businesses that do not demonstrate positive social impact nor mitigate potential negative impacts. These are greatly exaggerated in a social media driven world. Whichever way you may come at this, there is no way to ignore social impacts in today's society.
Solutions to Elevate Your Business
The Gianneschi Center specializes in assessing and supporting the social impact of local businesses. By serving as an unbiased third party, the Center offers workshops, assessments, consultative recommendations, and additional services to help businesses align with best practices in social responsibility.
Summer Workshops
These interactive workshops will typically have 15 to 25 participants and last 4 to 12 hours. Workshops that are more than 4 hours may span multiple days based on the preference of most participants. Participants will typically come from multiple organizations. These will be held on the CSUF campus, unless all the participants are from a single organization.
Ethical Decision Making (4 hrs)
Navigate ethical dilemmas, analyze real-world scenarios, and develop a personal decision-making framework.
Stakeholder Identification & Engagement (4 hrs)
Identify key stakeholders, align them with strategic priorities, and develop engagement plans. This four-hour workshop is a pre-requisite for the following workshops.
Intentional CSR (8 hrs)
Explore corporate social responsibility (CSR) models, from philanthropy to transformative strategies, and align them with business goals. Exercises conducted during this workshop will help you determine what makes the most sense for your business and its priorities.
Social Impact Strategizing (12 or 4 hrs)
Integrate social impact initiatives into broader business strategies for sustainable growth. It will have two versions. If participants have only completed the Stakeholder identification and engagement workshop, then this workshop will be 12 hours long. If they have also completed Intention CSR, this will be 4 hours long.
Key Services
Social Impact Assessment and Consultation
The Center provides assessment reports evaluating a company’s social impact, offering insights for marketing and business improvement. Customized assessment and consultation services are also available to address specific needs.
We will use a combination of various frameworks (UNSDG, ESG measures, BIA, and SROI) to carry out a foundational assessment of the entire business’ social impact. The assessment will be carried out by student interns working for the Gianneschi Center under the guidance of Dr Srikant.
Transitioning to a Social Enterprise or B-Corp
Businesses interested in adopting a social enterprise model can receive guidance on restructuring. Support is also available for companies pursuing B-Corp certification through B-Lab.
Add-on services
Businesses undergoing the above assessment will have the following optional add-on services.
Social Impact Change Management
Once areas for improvement are identified, the Center assists in implementing organizational change to enhance social impact initiatives.
Annual Benchmarking
After a more involved assessment in the first year, we will follow up with a survey in subsequent years. Everyone participating in the surveys will be benchmarked with their peers by city and/or industry. The benchmarking information will be made available to the participants after at least two years of consecutive survey responses.