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One Way to Demand More Corporate Social Responsibility


It’s no secret that Americans love to go out to eat. Choosing take out or driving to the nearest food drive always sounds better than working in the kitchen for what seems like hours. Luckily, for those times that a good burger or pizza sounds too delicious to pass up, there are still opportunities to help the world’s poor as restaurants adopt new policies of corporate social responsibility.

Restaurants everywhere are catching on to the notion that they can adopt a policy of corporate social responsibility and use their position in society to help people who are in need. According to an article in AdWeek, Millennials are civic-minded and have more recently demanded that companies and corporations be civic-minded as well by giving back to society. Millennials want to create change, take responsibility for the world and help those who are unable to help themselves.

The 2015 Cone Communications Millennial CSR (corporate social responsibility) Study found that 9 in 10 millennials would drop one brand and replace it with a more socially conscious one. Furthermore, 62 percent of millennials would willingly take a pay cut if it meant working for a socially responsible company. Millennials are dedicated to staying socially responsible in all areas of their lives.

Many people know of clothing brands and large corporations that are donating sums of money or have a one-for-one philanthropic model with clothes, shelter and other essential items. In a similar way, there are now many restaurants that are donating food to hungry people all over the world.

Some major brands, including Panera Bread, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Yum Brand restaurants and Zambrero donate to charitable causes specific to eradicating hunger worldwide. Some restaurants name the charities they are working with right in their mission statement. For example, Malawi’s Pizza serves “pizza with a purpose,” has a Meal for Meal Exchange program and has sent 923,859 meals to orphans in Malawi since its inception.

These are only a few options. The good news is there are many more corporations that care about good causes. Staying educated on corporate social responsibility is the most efficient way to be up-to-date with which corporations are making a difference because those are the ones that should maintain support. The more demanding consumers are of socially responsible corporations, the more they will appear and, as a result, Americans can begin taking more responsibility for those in need everywhere.

– Emily Arnold

Photo: Flickr

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Social Movement Among Millenials: Effective Altruism

Social Movement
A young man decided to devote his life to saving the lives of people in poverty-stricken countries. Thus, he completed his doctorate of philosophy at the University of Oxford and became a trader at a Wall Street firm. Although the logic in this plan is not immediately clear, in the scheme of effective altruism, it makes perfect sense.

Effective altruism is “a philosophy and social movement which applies evidence and reason to determining the most effective ways to improve the world”. It is a trend, primarily among young people, to live their best life while also giving the most they can to help other people. It is not sacrificing but flourishing.

The Oxford grad and trader, Matt Wage, made it his goal to give a sufficient amount of his annual salary to save the lives of millions of children around the world who die annually from preventable diseases. He realized that, as a trader, he would be able to give a larger amount of money away, and within a year of work, he was donating a six-figure sum to highly effective charities. He is able to lead a stable, comfortable life in a promising career while helping hundreds of people across the globe.

Philosophy plays a major role in the workings of effective altruism because it challenges the relationship between impulse and reason: are we guided entirely by impulse and only later apply reason as a hollow justification, or do we decipher our reasoning before even considering out actions? How does logic play into charitable acts? Is it a guiding principle some possess and others do not, or do generous people simply give as a matter of impulse? Like many things in philosophy, there are no simple answers, but it is enough to challenge popular notions of behavior by benefiting oneself while also helping others.

Effective altruists also challenge conventions in that they are highly selective in where they let their money go. Rather than spreading funds across many different charities, they donate to just one or two organizations they know are highly effective and make the most of their funds. This requires thorough research into the progress and activity of different organizations and a strong passion for one or two causes.

Effective altruists also employ logic in funneling their donations. They believe that rather than donating to causes that attract people through emotional sway, people should donate funds to causes that most need them and will most effectively use them. This promotes charitable organizations to attract donors through demonstrated transparency and efficiency rather than eliciting emotional responses.

As Millenials enter the workforce, many are considering careers that allow them to give back while living modest lives. They are directing the course of their lives in the interest of others while giving back to their own communities through hard work and human capital. In this way, they are leading industrious lives and helping others do the same. They employ both logic and emotion and shed an optimistic light on the future of charity and goodwill.

– Jenny Wheeler

Sources: TED, Boston Review
Photo: Pxfuel