Customer and Corporate Social Issue Involvement Aren’t Interchangeable, and Employee Treatment Matters

Consumer expectations of companies to support social issues have skyrocketed since COVID. From research we led with Points of Light Foundation, we now also know that in the mind of consumers, asking them to engage with a social issue does not relieve a company from taking supportive actions itself. And when it comes to whether a company is supporting a cause for mainly altruistic reasons, consumers will judge by how the company treats its own employees.

As we move beyond transactional CSR, philanthropy and social impact work by companies, we are heading toward not only a wider expectation of what companies should be doing, but also an expectation that the consumer won’t play a pivotal role in doing it for them.

Read: Civic Life Today: The State of Global Civic Engagement