Strategy and Management for Community Engagement and Investment

Abstract

The first step in the process of designing, implementing and managing a company’s community engagement and investment should be developing appropriate strategies and policies. The development of a community-focused strategy is the time for the corporate responsibility committee of the company’s board of directors, and the company as a whole, to focus on three fundamental questions. First, the company should decide on the group within their community that will be the primary target of the activities (e.g., young people by improving primary education and/or providing recreational spaces, older people or community members with disabilities). The next thing that needs to be done is to determine whether activities should be focused on specific parts of the community, such as a particular neighborhood, or can and should be scaled to have an impact throughout the entire geographic area. Finally, in order to have a strategy the company needs to decide on the sector and related issues on which the community-related activities will concentrate. Sector refers to the broader community development area (e.g., education, health, the environment and job creation) on which the company’s community-related activities will concentrate, and issues are specific aspects of the selected sector (e.g., early childhood education in the education sector or entrepreneurship training in the job creation sector).

Keywords: community engagement, community investment, strategy, management