How to build CSR into your next event
Events may be a broad church – training, internal conferences, external client events – but even conferences on the most serious of topics look for ways to engage the audience and encourage relationship or team-building. As corporate social responsibility becomes more prominent in everyone’s consciousness, savvy event organisers are increasingly looking for activities which are engaging and rewarding for participants while also giving back to the community.
Rachel Capell, Operations Director at cievents UK, stresses that devising the ideal CSR activity for an event is completely dependent on what it is the client wants to achieve. “One size doesn’t fit all,” she says. “When a new client brief comes in, we begin by asking them a series of questions, such as ‘what is the primary objective of the event?’ ‘What do you want the delegates to come away with?’ We review the company’s overall strategic goal – why they’re having this event, the demographics of the attendees, the location, the budget. It’s sometimes challenging to find an activity that every demographic can enjoy and relate to, however we do our best.”
CSR event decision-making will also depend on whether a company supports a particular charity. “We are finding that more and more clients are becoming affiliated with specific charities,” says Capell. “In this instance, our event manager will discuss options to find an activity that benefits both parties.” Different company cultures – or the culture of the event’s location – can affect the choice of beneficiary.
CSR events can be tailored to any location, duration, or culture and, most importantly, they can be fun and rewarding.
Come up with your own idea or try one of these CSR activities for your next conference or team-building event:
1. Mission Kilo
This activity’s objective is to help those in need in the community by collecting the greatest number of kilos of food to donate to the local food bank. All participants are assigned a role and an organiser will distribute clues booklets, coins and the rest of the equipment.
The specifics are specially designed with the contestants’ profile and the company’s objectives in mind. The trails will include references to company-specific details such as products and markets, as well as taking account of the life and history of the town.Once the stipulated time has passed, all the teams will be in the briefing area where the person in charge of the town’s food bank will be waiting to accept all the food that participants have obtained during the activity.
2. Nest Houses Workshop
In this activity participants build nesting houses for different species of birds. The group will be divided into groups of about five. They will be greeted at the destination by qualified monitors with signs bearing the names of the different teams which will be animal species, native to the location of the specific event.
The monitors will welcome the participants with explanations of what each is going to develop and take them to their specific workshop locations where, under the supervision of qualified personnel, each will become a bird’s house architect for a few hours. Uniforms with the month and date of the event can be created which participants can wear on the day and then keep as a souvenir of the event.
3. Tree-mend-us
This is a group’s chance to demonstrate the grit and determination (and experience the passion) it takes to attain valuable ‘gold’ coins which will subsequently be used to ‘purchase’ the tools and materials needed for the group to plant trees. The group’s participants are divided into smaller teams which rotate around a game to win points which are allocated according to the team’s performance in each task. The games, which might include Trolley, Aqua Dot, Angry Birds, Puzzled, Bean Bag Toss, Giant Jenga, Dodge Ball and Da Vinci Bridge, are a mix of mental and physical to ensure that there’s something for every member of the group.
By planting a tree on one of these sites, the teams will gain the huge satisfaction of having contributed towards reforestation. Delegates will be contributing towards a better environment and helping create greener and healthier places for people to enjoy for generations to come.
4. Nest Houses Workshop
In this activity participants build nesting houses for different species of birds. The group will be divided into groups of about five. They will be greeted at the destination by qualified monitors with signs bearing the names of the different teams which will be animal species, native to the location of the specific event.
The monitors will welcome the participants with explanations of what each is going to develop and take them to their specific workshop locations where, under the supervision of qualified personnel, each will become a bird’s house architect for a few hours. Uniforms with the month and date of the event can be created which participants can wear on the day and then keep as a souvenir of the event.
5. Build-a-bicycle
This engaging and rewarding activity requires the group to be divided into teams of between four and eight participants. Teams are given a “Prove Book” containing a series of challenges – each of which is rewarded differently – to earn tokens that can be exchanged for the tools and parts needed to build the bicycles.
The activity ends with the assembling of bicycles by each team. The participants can either then experience the joy of delivering the new toy to nominated disadvantaged children or they can select their own charity.
6. SolarBuddy
Over the last couple of years, delegates and staff attending various FCM events have been building SolarBuddy lights as part of the conference programme. Approximately 18% of the world’s population has no access to electricity. This equates to 1.4 billion people living in the dark - which severely impacts their education, health, the economy and the environment. This activity’s objective is to help break this cycle and improve the educational opportunities of children living in darkness by providing them with solar lights so that they can study after dusk.
Building these lights not only fosters more meaningful experiences for participants but also inspires them to spread the word about energy poverty. Each kit comes with instructions and takes around 15-20 minutes to build using a basic screwdriver. The SolarBuddy light kits can be branded with the corporate’s company identity.
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