Companies today are asked to take a stand for or against a variety of topics. Everything from saving the bees to sustainability to social justice is being discussed by stakeholders.

At IGC, help several companies determine which issues align with their corporate mission and meet the demands of stakeholders. And while the outcomes vary for each of our customers, there is one thing that has consistently come up in our engagements -- the importance of corporate civic engagement. 

So, what is corporate civic engagement? 

We define corporate civic engagement as the following:

• Business-led

• education, enablement, and action

• internally and externally on

• local, national and/or global issues

• that involve government/s and/or communities

Typically, we see organizations creating one or more of the following civics initiatives:

• policies: official, people-centric guidelines and rules. for example, paid time off to vote)

• political involvement and influence: programs centered on democracy, such as voting, employee-driven advocacy, lobbying, education, etc.

• social responsibility: any efforts to improve the environment and/or better humanity

• philanthropy: supporting nonprofit organizations, foundations, chambers, and more through direct services, products, resources, and/or money

The most common (and least risky) civic engagement program many companies launch is a "Get Out the Vote" (GOTV) initiative -- which encourages and/or enables people to participate in the democratic process.

By focusing on democratic participation and voting, companies can stay away from partisan policies and reframe the focus of divisive social issues. These programs also have the following benefits:

• Make a positive impact on our democratic system    

• Improve stakeholder loyalty, especially among employees and customers          

• Reframe the public and employee dialogue                         

• Create opportunities for employees to DO something

The best message organizations developing these initiatives deliver is, "we value a healthy and strong democracy that allows all of us to exercise our unique opinions on policy."

All corporate civic engagement efforts should measurably improve outcomes for corporate stakeholders, our country, the communities in which we operate, and/or the planet. However, knowing which metrics to look at and how to collect the data is often challenging.

As former practitioners, my co-founder Jackie and I have experienced this hurdle firsthand; therefore, we are rolling out three new corporate civic engagement resources.

3 Corporate Civic Engagement Resources

Civic Engagement Measurement Guide

This informative guide (requires free account) will teach you about the three types of corporate voting programs, give you tactical examples of programs, and share potential measures of success. 

Corporate Civic Engagement Survey for Business Leaders

With this 5-minute survey due Dec. 16, we hope to gain and share an understanding of the following: 

• Maturity of corporate civic engagement programs

• Challenges and opportunities for executives and practitioners

• Initial civic engagement benchmarks for key corporate demographics (industry, size, maturity)

With these insights, IGC will create a comprehensive report and strategic recommendations. By participating, you will get access to this report to help evaluate your programs, facilitate key conversations, and plan meaningful actions for the future. 

For IGC Online members, we will host readouts and can schedule 1:1 follow-up meetings to review your benchmarks, if interested.

Important: We take your confidentiality and data seriously. We use secure Microsoft technology and will not share your individual responses with anyone.

Sample Survey You Can Send Your Employees

This survey aims to get a baseline from your employees on your corporate civic engagement efforts. The results will help you understand what percentage of people surveyed knew, participated in, and found value in your efforts. It will also answer questions like, "are employees engaged in your civic engagement activities more loyal to the company?" Finally, it will help you look at civic participation and a sense of belonging based on key demographic information. Overall, the goal of this resource is to help get data to facilitate key conversations and determine actions moving forward.

Feedback or Questions?

We hope these resources start to create some common verbiage and benchmarks for corporate civic engagement; however, as with everything we do, we value the input and feedback from our community. After all, IGC stands for "In Good Company.” Please reach out to share your thoughts, ask for help, brag about your GOTV midterms successes, or get connected with peers developing similar programs.