Hi everyone! Crayton Webb from Sunwest Communications with Two Minutes of Advice or Insight today from Sunwest. Happy New Year, first of all. Today we thought we’d talk about corporate social responsibility and our predictions for the new year in 2019. What are we going to see from some of America’s biggest companies and brands. First prediction we’re gonna see continued conversation – a lot of it – around diversity and inclusion. Diversity in the boardroom, diversity in the C-suite, and we predict that of course the “No More” and “Time’s Up” movements are gonna continue, and that’s gonna drive a lot of this conversation around diversity. Plan for it to continue. Second we’re gonna see this idea and notion of corporate activism continuing. It used to be that major brands wanted to stay away from politics. They didn’t want to appear to be Republican or Democrat, left or on the right, because they would always claim that their customers, of course, nationally, were both. But now we’re seeing employees of these companies as well as their major customers – particularly on the coasts – demand that the major brands take a stand. We saw a lot of this in 2018 when it came to NFL players taking a knee during the National Anthem. We saw it around the immigration issue. So plan to see more corporations taking a stand on political issues, and as more of them do it, it’ll make it easier for others to become politically active as well. Third, continue to plan to see brands using CSR as a crisis inoculation strategy. The very best brands, of course, are making friends, building fans and followers when times are good by helping solve some of society’s most severe problems. But those who are destined to face a reputational crisis are also engaging in CSR in order to build up good will in the bank of public trust for when bad times occur. Fourth and finally, a question. All this discussion about the downturn in the economy, the question is in 2019: Will we see major brands and corporations tightening their philanthropic and CSR belts because of all the fear of a potential downturn in the economy. We will see in 2019. And that’s Two Minutes of Advice and Insight from Sunwest.

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