Mustaches and Giving Back: How CSR Brings Teams Together and Supports Communities
Tags: Nonprofit, Give Back, Corporate Culture, Social Responsibility, Fundraising

Mustaches and Giving Back: How CSR Brings Teams Together and Supports Communities

GirlForward’s Development Intern, Erin Duddy, explores Corporate Social Responsibility and sits down with our partners at Uber Freight to share what motivates them to support girls. GirlForward Follow Dec 3, 2020 · 4 min read

When you imagine a more equitable and socially conscious future, what is it you imagine? For Harris Ligon, an employee at Uber Freight Chicago, it’s a place where young girls can grow up knowing that they have every opportunity available to them.

In the past few years as more light has been shone on corporations’ conduct, we’ve seen increasing calls on corporations to focus on more than just being a place to work. There’s a heightened importance to go beyond the traditional office and look at how employees and companies as a whole are engaging and taking responsibility in a larger social impact sphere. Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR, is the term used to describe the process of companies conducting business in a way that takes into account societal issues and goals. This is usually done through supporting community volunteering, or conducting business in an ethnically-oriented manner.

Ohio University highlights that for a company to truly commit to CSR, a business’s efforts “should become ingrained in the values and culture of a company” and “inherent in the mission and message of an organization”. Is a company engaging in socially responsible actions to appease consumers, or are they actually following through on initiatives they support and believe in?

At Uber Freight, a group of Chicago employees get together every fall to support a cause they value: the mission of GirlForward. Harris has been a part of a team at Uber Freight that has orchestrated an annual November fundraiser for GirlForward, growing out mustaches for the month and getting the whole office involved. When asked about what makes their fundraiser so successful every year, Harris says fundraising for GirlForward is just a part of the work culture now at the office, “when November comes around, everyone knows it’s time to fundraise for GirlForward.” Getting everyone involved at the office has been pretty simple due to the belief in a core goal of GirlForward: to empower girls.

GirlForward became ingrained in the office environment in part due to the alignment of GirlForward’s mission and Uber Freight’s own mission. “When we thought about our objective to be socially active we focused on being in Chicago and wanted to pick something that was local to the area and impact”. Uber Freight has been working In their offices to develop technology focused on supporting underserved communities. Beyond this, they wanted to take the month of November every year as an opportunity to do their part to empower a community they supported. Considering the office’s predominantly male environment, Harris wanted to prioritize other opportunities within the space. Shachar Astor, another employee at Uber Freight, echoed these sentiments, saying he has been inspired by what GirlForward does day in and day out. “Our first thought was that men could work and support a predominantly female organization that absolutely needed the resources.”

Shachar calls corporate social responsibility “a fundamental pillar that everyone should have.” Shachar emphasized that there’s a lot of hate and hurt in the world right now, and many different ways that people can impact the world. We’ve seen how actions speak larger than just words and empty promises, or vague statements, highlighting the increased importance for Corporate Social Responsibility. Looking at a local focus, and a local community, was important. Harris notes that they wanted to target their efforts in an area they could tie back to their mission statement, and create a call “to act up and step up”, saying, right now there’s “a rallying cry to focus on our community” and supporting actions in which you fundamentally believe. Uber Freight has worked to keep the whole office motivated, sending out weekly numbers to each other and reaching out to their family and friends to gain momentum.

While the team at Uber Freight connected the initiative of “no-shave November” with a campaign to support GirlForward, there are so many ways for companies to engage in CSR. Some companies donate a portion of their profits, create a responsibility driven business model to encompass their conduct as a company, or create stronger sustainability initiatives in the workplace or greater investment in the well-being of employees.

Corporate Social Responsibility is an opportunity to use your community of support and resources at your office to support others in a way that aligns with your company beliefs and should be supported on a social level. We all have a call to action to do more in our communities and to contribute and work towards goals that create a greater benefit to our society. When you look at your company, are you talking in your office about how to use your position to make a greater impact? Are you following through on it?