CSR and Crowdsourcing: a Powerful Combination
Research continues to come out in support of the benefits of crowdsourcing, this time a recently released study showing that crowdsourcing and social media play vital roles in helping companies raise awareness and drive engagement for their corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs.
A survey of executives found that 44 percent of companies have asked customers to provide ideas and help in decision-making on how to tackle issues and achieve goals, with 95% of executives who have used crowdsourcing finding it valuable to the organization’s pro-social or CSR efforts.
When asked why they find crowdsourcing to be valuable, executives say that it surfaces new perspectives and diverse opinions (36%), builds engagement and relationships with key audiences (25%), invites clients and customers from nontraditional sources to contribute ideas and opinions (22%) and it brings new energy into the process of generating ideas and content (16%).
Even those executives who have not yet used crowdsourcing (55%) view the collaboration tool favorably, with 43% indicating that crowdsourcing could be valuable to their organization’s future CSR efforts.
One company illustrating these CSR efforts is PepsiCo, who has is bringing recognition to the organization Scientists Without Borders, which recently evolved from a social networking site for scientists to an open innovation platform that crowdsources solutions to scientific problems. SWB describes itself as a “web-based collaborative community dedicated to generating, sharing, and advancing innovative science and technology-based solutions to the world`s most pressing global development challenges.”
According to an article by Fast Company, PepsiCo sponsored a SWB member challenge to develop innovative solutions to fight malnutrition in moms and infants. The brand offered $10,000 for the winning solution; a change in practice for Scientists Without Borders which typically offers no incentive to solve user-generate challenges. However, they are now in talks to develop more partner-funded challenges and are also looking at ways to create its own fund that would put money behind the most compelling challenges.
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