Community Development of Corporations Corporate

Community Development of Corporations

Corporate citizenship and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) are the foundational elements for any business or organization to build a foundation of trust with its community. What is particularly gratifying about the rapid adoption of these two factors, with CSR specifically being the basis of broad investments in the areas of infrastructure, human capital management and job creation. Nowhere are these improvements more needed than in regions that ironically have very rich natural resources, yet face a dearth of infrastructure, human capital development and job creation programs and support. A prime example of this dynamic is when gold is discovered in a remote, often impoverished region of a country. As gold's value continues to increase and the mine's return on investment (ROI) continues to escalate, there are significant funds available for community development programs, guided by corporate citizenship and CSR frameworks. The company I work for is in this situation today and the intent of this analysis is to show how they are furthering economic development, and what their plans for the future are.

Making a Boomtown's Growth Benefit Citizens in Need

At the foundation of the community development and CSR initiatives the company is sponsoring is investment in physical and digital infrastructure. This includes providing a subsidy for developing a local community center, a subsidiary for repairing dilapidated bridges, and creating a fund for helping to repair and in one case, replace an entire school that has fallen into disrepair after nearly three decades of neglect. Our company has an entire department dedicated to community development, including financial managers that evaluate how best to donate the funds needed, also ensuring the projects funded attain their objectives as well. As our business operates in many remote, poor areas, which is ironically where gold is found the majority of the time, our community development and CSR managers travel extensively to these locations and complete planning and implementation programs to define how best the local economic can be improved through infrastructure development. A series of these trips showed that by providing Internet access throughout the local libraries, high school graduate rates increased by over 60%.