This month, we award the spotlight to the Coca-Cola Foundation for taking corporate NGOs to the next level by using their unique capabilities and tailoring local efforts while maintaining an eye towards the long-term corporate benefit. Coca-Cola CEO and Chairman Muhtar Kent talks about a company’s “social license to operate.” The idea is that your company operates within a given community not because you want to but because that community wants your company there. They have given you an unwritten license to operate and can revoke it at any time. For Coca-Cola, using the company’s unique capabilities means drawing on its people and distribution chains. Beyond those, overarching directions for the Foundation include environment, fitness and active lifestyles, community recycling, and education. There is a kind of mistrust of many CSR efforts, rather like we mistrust politicians. Take, for example, Jackson Miller of jaxn.org who says, “The best thing for society is for corporations to focus on making money... anything else is an abuse of power by the executives of the company.” The Coca-Cola Foundation has managed to navigate potential mistrust in a masterful way by tailoring programs locally via 19 locally run sub-foundations that put locally respected people in charge of locally important efforts. Last month, we listed out all of the potential benefits to a parent company with CSR efforts. The Coca-Cola Foundation has managed to include them all within its various efforts including: employee retention, improved talent pipelines, improved supply chains, positive political will, increased local market share, increased brand equity, and more. They have crafted a delicate and critical balance between optimizing business conditions and providing what local communities deem important. There are many lessons in the Coca-Cola Foundation’s efforts for every business of every size. Understand the ‘social license to operate’. Center CSR efforts on your unique capabilities. Tailor CSR programs to local needs. Avoid CSR mistrust by deciding and acting locally. Lastly, optimize business conditions within your ‘social license to operate’.
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Keywords: CSR, coca-cola, foundation, coke, spotlight, award, global, business, trend, watch, list, 2010, advantage, strategic, competitive
