Just Good Business

The Strategic Guide to Aligning Corporate Responsibility and Brand

CSR can help companies build customer loyalty, recruit and retain employees, and stand out in a crowded marketplace. But to be most effective CSR must be intimately connected to the corporate brand—it must reinforce a company’s unique identity, be an integral part of how a company tells its story. How can your company make the most of this potential competitive advantage? In Just Good Business, Kellie McElhaney shows leaders and managers exactly how to connect their CSR efforts to their company’s overall corporate strategy, business objectives, and core competencies. She provides a process for assessing whether CSR practices are reinforcing the brand, explains how to develop a unified CSR strategy, and lays out a framework of seven principles for leveraging the power of CSR branding. McElhaney’s book draws on over ten years of previously unpublished CSR consulting engagements inside companies grappling with developing strategically aligned CSR initiatives. The book’s case vignettes, examples, best practices, and strategic recommendations span a host of industries and sectors, and draw upon McElhaney’s work with leading corporations like McDonalds, Nokia, Medtronic, Levi, Wells Fargo, Birkenstock, Gap, Inc., HP, and Pepperidge Farm. Savvy companies carefully manage their brand in every area—CSR shouldn’t be any different. Just Good Business offers a detailed blueprint any company can use to ensure that their CSR initiatives deliver significant, quantifiable, bottom-line benefit.