I kissed the baby. Do we
have to make donations, too?

Communications professionals around the world want to raise the profile of their organizations' corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts by increasing communications and promoting standalone CSR departments, according to a poll by Ragan Communications and PollStream, reports MarketingCharts.

Respondents were conflicted, however, about why they want to increase CSR activities and where a CSR department should reside within their organization.

Key findings:

• Some 70 percent of the 439 respondents indicate that their companies practice and communicate CSR, though 30 percent say they have no CSR programs at all.
• When asked what they'd like to change about their CSR programs, 43 percent would like to increase them and 21 percent want to measure their ROI. Only 6 percent would reduce CSR initiatives overall.
• Poll respondents are split over their reasons for wanting to increase CSR. Some 40 percent say it would improve employee engagement, while 50 percent say it would enhance PR and corporate image; 7 percent hope to grow sales and 4 percent want to attract new employees.
• Nearly 50 percent believe a standalone department reporting directly to the CEO should take charge of CSR. The remaining 50 percent are split over whether media relations, internal communications or marketing should have responsibility.

Communicators also showed a preference for using traditional media — such as newsletters and CSR reports — rather than new online media, to communicate CSR initiatives:

• 58 percent of respondents cite traditional communications outlets as their venue of choice for disseminating CSR news.
• 43 percent plan to promote CSR activities such as employee volunteerism and community ambassador programs.
• 22 percent plan to promote CSR with more aggressive public relations programs that coincide with community outreach.
• 22 percent plan to communicate CSR programs using social media such as blogs, podcasts and Facebook groups.

About the research: PollStream partnered with Ragan Communications to create POLL-arized, a series of polls about corporate communications. A sample of 439 communicators from North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia participated in the poll.