Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has evolved from a nice-to-have into a critical business function, particularly in the financial sector. Between environmental, social, and governance (ESG) benchmarks, regulatory expectations like the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and employee demand for purpose-driven work, CSR is now an essential part of how financial companies operate, recruit and retain employees, and grow.
As we hit the midpoint of 2025, it’s time to evaluate your CSR efforts and recalibrate as needed. Adjust your company’s goals as necessary for the second half of the year. Checking your progress mid-year can help elevate your impact and ensure your company is on track to meet its year-end targets.
Here’s how to conduct a productive mid-year CSR assessment and plan effectively for what’s next.
1. Review Your CSR Objectives
Start with your ‘why.’ Why does your company engage in CSR? Are your efforts aligned with your mission, values and stakeholder expectations?
Many financial organizations create CSR goals at the start of the year—around volunteer hours, charitable donations or sustainable lending—but rarely revisit those benchmarks. As you re-examine, ask:
- Are our CSR goals still relevant under the current economic and social conditions? For example, as hurricane season is upon the southeastern US, perhaps funds might be needed more there than where you previously planned.
- Have any new business priorities, community needs, or compliance requirements emerged?
- Are we balancing internal goals, like employee engagement, with external impact? Externally, seeing your organization’s people out in the community and spinning up positive PR is vital for building a brand and culture of giving. At the same time, employee engagement through volunteerism, among other things, can help decrease absenteeism by 81%!
If any of your original objectives feel outdated or too broad, refine them to reflect your company’s evolving priorities and opportunities.
2. Evaluate Progress with Data and Stories
CSR isn’t just about numbers, but the numbers do help. Collect data on your performance to date. Modern CSR technology platforms, like Uncommon Giving, can help calculate the data and provide reports in seconds versus hours of painstaking manual computations (that might not be accurate!).
- Are you halfway to your organization’s community impact hours? Do you have plans to make them up?
- What percentage of employees are participating in volunteer events? How has employee turnover been affected?
- How many dollars have been given? Should your organization match donations?
Pair these data with qualitative information, such as brief video interviews with employees during or after an event, written testimonials and other ways of demonstrating your organization and team’s commitment to giving back.
Have there been standout employee stories or nonprofit partnerships that illustrate your enthusiasm and impact? Testimonials, internal case studies and social media engagement can put a human face to your CSR efforts.
3. Engage Employees in the Conversation
Your CSR program’s success depends on participation. Mid-year is a great time to survey employees about their experience with your programs. Talk with them about the activities they’ve participated in this year and what types of causes matter most to them. Ask how the company can make it easier to get involved.
Your employees will likely have fresh ideas for partnerships, events or tools to improve engagement. And when they feel heard, they’re more likely to get involved again. An employer with a workplace giving program makes 69% of employees feel more loyal to the company.
Use this input to inform updates to your programming, communications and technology platform. Even small changes—like simplifying sign-ups or offering cause-themed volunteering days—can dramatically improve participation, as well as simply marketing them.
4. Align with Regulatory and ESG Reporting
For financial companies, CSR isn’t just a matter of reputation; it can be a matter of compliance and reporting. Whether you track CRA-qualified activities, serve low-income communities as a CDFI, or prepare ESG disclosures for investors and boards, the data matter. Uncommon Giving can do it for you.
Now is the perfect time to review how your current CSR metrics stack up against board-supported ESG objectives or CDFI Fund requirements and make tweaks to keep things on track to meet or exceed your goals. If you’ve publicly committed to a specific donation level, your organization can make up time in the second half.
5. Set SMART Goals for the Second Half
Establish SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals for the rest of the year based on your evaluation. It could be something like employee volunteer hours by 25% by December 31, add three new nonprofit partners or financial coaching in underserved areas.
These targets should be visible and communicated across departments, not just within CSR or human resources teams. When CSR becomes a company-wide commitment, progress will accelerate.
Make Second-Half Magic with Uncommon Giving
Managing CSR efforts shouldn’t be a patchwork of disparate spreadsheets, paper documents and manual reporting. With Uncommon Giving’s intuitive platform, your company can streamline your give-at-work program, empower employees and access real-time insights that support CSR, ESG or CRA compliance.
Plus, our easy-to-use app makes it simple for employees to engage and keeps them motivated to give back. In fact, disengaged employees in the U.S. cost companies $450-$500 billion each year.
As you plan for the months ahead, let Uncommon Giving help you eliminate the administrative burden and amplify your impact. Reach out today to learn more!
