Usually, when media people hear about CSR, they associate it with giving of checks. Donations of money, computers, and books—which is the most common because schools are the favorite beneficiary of most companies.

The question is: Is CSR newsworthy? Usually, before the media people attack a story or even attend press conferences or join company visits, the first thing that comes to mind is… Is there a story here?

Let’s put it into context. Who is the audience of this news? If news is just to communicate what each division or what each department is doing, then that can go to the company newsletter. But if the audience is a bigger audience, the mass media, that’s when people like us, come into place. So, is CSR newsworthy to these kinds of media representatives?

In most of Southeast Asia, it’s not yet… not really because journalists who are writing for a wider audience generally perceive CSR as something that’s not really hard news; they don’t move the markets; they don’t affect prices.

But these are just assumptions. They are mere feel-good stories; they’re not even sexy; not sensational enough, may not even win them awards and; the messianic zeal is not persuasive enough.

Plus there’s a baggage to CSR. Most companies use this to atone for their sins. Meaning, when labor groups would send a message against companies which are employing short-term contractual employees or when environmental groups put focus on companies which are harming the environment, then they would say, “Oh, we’re doing good. Look, we have tree-planting projects, we’re donating books, we’re giving scholarships left and right. Oh, we’re the good guys actually.” CSR, in these cases, is used as a spin.

Sometimes, we use CSR events to ambush the CEOs or question them on more controversial issues.

Sometimes, CSR is marketed to the media as if it were purely just green grass and an idyllic setting. Of course we want to see the bigger picture which could be like this…

Philanthropy, which was very much associated with CSR, is just a subset. CSR essentially is what you make, how you take and what you give. Meaning, what you MAKE, the products that companies produce, the services that they offer. How you TAKE, meaning, the profits that they have. What you GIVE, meaning, they’re giving out to the community, calling themselves “corporate citizens.”

In business school before, students were taught that companies just focused on the shareholders. But now, companies, aside from shareholders, look at beneficiaries in their communities. CSR advocates urged companies to look at their employees. They asked, “Are you harming them? Are you treating them well?” This became one of the CSR drivers.

They also asked, “Are you giving them humane working conditions? Are you employing child laborers?” And then companies said, “Let’s extend this to our suppliers” like what Figaro is doing.

Pressure groups and consumers who demanded safe products and those that are not manufactured in companies that employ child labor or exploit workers were one of the earliest drivers of CSR.

Companies started to look at the communities wherein they operate. Because essentially, if they don’t look at the community, they may have peace and order problems and they may harm company equipment or executives or they may not have a supply of qualified employees. So, companies started to invest in the education of community members by giving scholarships.

Then other companies looked at something bigger, the world! And the entire planet, now that they’re starting to look at climate change. They ask questions like: “How is our business as far as carbon emissions are concerned?” “Are we contributing to the degradation of the entire planet?”

So, without us knowing it, actually, these issues are already CSR issues but they’re not just branded as such. The companies make CSR a differentiating factor. Then the investors started investing in companies that have CSR programs.

So, essentially, our CSR drivers are summarized as these: It’s imposed on us in the value chain; multinational companies which have CSR agenda in their offices in developed countries are telling their subsidiaries, branches, and suppliers in Southeast Asia to practice CSR.

Second, market competitiveness. For example, there are some investors who will say that one of their requirements before they invest money in El Nido was to make sure that a percentage of the profit goes to social community work. One of the investors in the Ayala Group asked for their CSR report, not the financial report. So, CSR is moving from being just a “feel-good” peripheral issue to being “a must.”

Just to give perspective. The company first has to earn profits. It can’t give without earning from the operations. And then companies have to fulfill their legal responsibilities. For one, they should pay their taxes.

CSR also goes beyond legal responsibilities. It has ethical responsibilities. And they can claim to be good corporate citizens when they treat their communities well.

The media can be cynical about CSR. I say this because we write more about corporate irresponsibility stories which is not bad actually, it’s part of our watchdog role. We name and shame.

During our training in Subic last year, one of the attendees, Jasmin Romero of Radio Mindanao Network, said, “We need good-news stories but we just don’t want them to be PR stories.”

Even good-news stories have to follow the standards of journalism: timeliness, accuracy, impartiality, and they should be imbued with public interest.

Journalists need to dig deeper, put CSR activities into context, and report them as part of a bigger story on a company’s activities.

Roel Landingin of Financial Times said, “Our stories should reflect current business trends. If we see that more CEOs are making the announcements themselves, (meaning CSR is being taken up in the board and being discussed among the top peers of corporate leadership), then there may be a shift in the coverage of CSR” from just mere philanthropy to something more.

“If people behave normally, that is not news. If companies donate books, that is not news. There is no impact to the community,” according to Joe Torres. “But if the money or the impact is substantial enough to empower the communities, then that is news.”

The Economist said, “For too long PR practitioners have expected journalists to jump on any story about a company doing good. We need hard evidence that CSR is more than just a fig leaf and that actions are being chosen because they are a good use of shareholders’ money rather than merely being of personal interest to the CEO.”

Josue Claur of the British Council who also attended the training said, “It’s nice that the media are learning how to analyze CSR projects of companies. But are they ready for questions that will look at CSR as reflected in their business operations?”

So, the questions we will ask the companies are: What is the real problem they are trying to solve? Is there a long-term commitment or are you just using this as a marketing ploy? Is the project sustainable?

More: What are the motivations behind the CSR programs? Again, are you just pontificating? Are you just nagging us the message that you’re a good company? What do you want to accomplish? What are your CSR goals? Do you just want to boost your brand? Do you want to translate good reputation to goodwill? Do you want employees to choose you? Like, for example, if this particular very qualified person is choosing between two companies, do you want him or her to choose you because you have a good reputation as an employer?

What evidence do you have to prove your success? How it will be measured? Usually, CSR projects are considered “soft assets” on the balance sheet but how does this translate to your bottom line?

Is CSR embedded in your business operations? This is very important. Where is the budget coming from, the PR department? Is there a department or is there someone in charge looking at the long-term sustainability of that project? Or is the person in charge just part of an ad hoc group?

Who is the audience you are trying to reach? Are you trying to reach clients, investors, prospective hires? Are you trying to give your story as example for other companies to emulate?

Lastly, what role does CSR play when you make major business decisions? Example, when you’re designing new products or when entering a market or putting up a new factory, is this part and parcel of your strategy?

So, here are tips for companies which promote their CSR accomplishments….

First, be transparent. Being transparent is as important as the results themselves. Tell us about your successes and setbacks. What have you done? What have you not done? What needs to be done so the others would also be able to learn from you? Acknowledge the complexity of the issues and your imperfections. And please no PR gloss.

Actually, there’s this one report from SustainAbility which focused on Shell. They said that Shell reported that they found that some of their employees accepted bribes and they were fired. That got the press interested.

Second, don’t stretch the truth. In other words, please don’t exaggerate. CSR success depends upon tangible results, not just rhetoric.

Don’t lie please. It will haunt you. This is a favorite quote from someone I know, “The media is relatively gentler on those who openly admit they screwed up. It’s disarming. Although we may not become your friend, we will at least contemplate that you have a conscience. That realization alone can be the difference between a hostile story and one that respects the sometimes-complicated choices an executive faces when handling a crisis.”

This one is from Kevin Marsh, someone I was with in a previous CSR event. He said, “No one would believe us if we lied about the merits of CSR because we believed unquestioningly in the philosophy.” By the same token, no one will trust the CSR commitments of corporations for very long if those commitments aren’t openly tested in the public arena.” In other words, this is a two-way street. The companies need the media, the media also need the companies.

• Download Ms. Rimando's Powerpoint presentation here.