How can you align your brand's social causes with your business goals?

There are 2 ways a brand can do this in. One, pick a cause close to its field of operations, to alleviate the environmental damage it causes and help the communities it works with. This is the brand's moral responsibility. For instance, Coke should do something to boost the water table and keep the water clean where its factories are located. And McDonald's should do something for sustainable farming or fair trade (because of the gazillion tons of potatoes it buys from farmers). If the brand manages do this well, consistently, it can think of picking another cause aligned to its values. But the key is to do justice to whatever it chooses to work on, and not pay just lip service.

You should only promote social causes if it aligns with your brand values. Authenticity matters, so you need to understand what your brand stands for (and what it doesn't). Use your core values to dictate how you approach social issues. For example, if you brand values flexibility in the workplace and promotes products that enable it, it's appropriate to align with social causes around disabilities. That's aligned to both the brand values. Your customers and other stakeholders will see how this enhances your brand as an extension of what you stand for. But for that same brand, promoting a cause outside of their values—even if it's a good cause, like advocating against animal abuse—might feel inauthentic and damage the trust in the brand.

What's your goal for promoting a social cause? Is it a passion project for someone within the organization? Is it to earn trust from your customers? Is it to gain awareness in certain industries? Whatever your goals are, they need to be well-defined before you jump into any social causes. Once your goals are defined, you can back into how you approach your alignment to social causes. Is it a one-time campaign? Or is it a longterm brand alignment to a specific cause? I've seen both work effectively, but it all comes down to what your ultimate goals are. Whatever else is true, alignment to social causes needs to be both authentic and true to the brand's values, otherwise it can risk harming the trust in your brand.

Consider how your brand values, mission and vision align with a cause. Engage your entire organization around a pillar or pillars that make sense for your brand, and align actions to them. - Volunteer as team-building. - Connect to ERG efforts - Select organizations for directed donations that connect with sponsorships and volunteerism - Request employees' expertise to support a non-profit partner - Create an employee sabbatical for volunteering. Employees, influencers, and customers will feel more connected to the company, understand how the program connects to the company, and the company will benefit from positive brand lift while making greater impact in its causes.

At times, we support causes important to our local communities that have no inherent tie to brands. Examples: Heavy manufacturing supporting local art museum. Or tech company supporting the spelling bee. Framing as community relations and creating space for responsibility where employees live and work is just good business. Communicating this way builds brand equity and loyalty even when not directly tied to core brand.