Using Communication to inform future CSR strategies

My last days spent at IBL have been pretty agitated as I was asked to work on an important press conference to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the company's foundation. IBL foundation is an entity which has been created to guide its CSR activities of IBL. It works in collaboration with NGOs to support young children in Mauritius ,giving them access to education and to a safe, caring and healthy environment. Since its creation in 1994, it had contributed to several projects in the society like the construction of schools and financing of caring centre employees and has gradually become a recognised entity on the island. Thus, justifying the particular importance of the conference to mark its accomplishments in the society.

     Journalists interviewing the CEO and Communication& CSR
manager of IBL

The preparation had been intensive during the week preceding the event. So much that on the day of the conference, the only thing left to do was to prepare the event setting and wait patiently for the guests to arrive. When the conference started, I chose to sit behind the journalists and the audience to to have a broad view of the event. Observing the CEO making his speech in front of an enthusiastic audience was really comforting my idea of what a conference was; a sort of show to inform the public and promote the image of the company. But, what I did not know at that time was that this view would soon change as the conference would end and  guests would move to the terrace to enjoy the food which had been ordered by the company for the occasion.

NGOs members and journalists united and listening attentively
to the
 CEO's presentation of the foundation 

On going to  terrace, all I could see was people smiling,laughing, chatting and, I can clearly remember thinking that they were all like old friends meeting each after a very long time. However, as I approached a little bit closer and started interacting guests, something interesting happened; I realised that some NGOs members had never met the foundation’s employees in person. So far, they had only been communicating by mail or phone. The event was thus an opportunity for them to finally put a face on the voice they had been hearing for months thereby strengthening the bonds between the organisation and its partners. On the other side, as I went from group to group, I noticed members of different NGOs mingling and discussing about the possibility of partnering for future projects. In fact, they were using the event to build networks and obtain support in order to better help the children.

While observing the phenomenon with surprise, the idea that this conference could be a stakeholder engagement technique stroke my mind. Guests were getting to know each other, talking about how the organisation had helped them, addressing currents issues and planning future projects with the organisation’s employees and other NGOs. All these were clearly informing the organisation about the next CSR strategies to adopt. The benefits of engaging stakeholders had been extensively covered in our PR consultancy courses. They included increased support from the community, projects more suited to the needs of the community, employee engagement and better organisation image. This conference was clearly a strategy to involve stakeholders in the activities of the organisation and in this respect NGOs had been given the opportunity to set new activities on the CSR agenda of IBL. This in turn had enabled the company to reap all the benefits of engaging with stakeholders.

This experience  has clearly broaden my perspective about press conferences, and now I realise that press conferences can be used as powerful tools for achieving stakeholder engaging and informing future strategies of a company. In this respect, future PR practitioners like us should learn to use them wisely in strategic planning to foster better support from the community.This is what I have learnt from this last event I covered and  I can say this experience as an intern as been really eye-opening on the scope of work to be covered by a PR practitioners. If like me you have noticed other strategies used by your organisation to engage with stakeholders don’t hesitate to comment on this post. Otherwise, I wish you all good luck in your future PR careers.

Michaella Auguste
15842404
CTI, Mauritius