In: Accounting
The purpose of this is to analyze the sustainability report for the communication of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in a nonprofit organization. To this aim, an case study is analyzed: the nonprofit organization of Social Utility. In the first part, we analyze the CSR for nonprofit organizations and the sustainability report (also called ‘social balance’). In the second part, we present evidence from the case study. The research is exploratory in nature when considering the connection of corporate social responsibility efforts to the nonprofit sector, a qualitative methodology was chosen over quantitative methods. Specifically, the case study was used to show what strategy a nonprofit organization can develop. Nowadays CSR strategies received a growing attention from both businesses and nonprofit organizations but also from the EU which forced large public-interest entities to present a social balance. For nonprofit organizations, applying social responsibility is not a voluntary issue. Nonprofit organizations have an ethical obligation to their stakeholder and to the public to conduct their activities with accountability and transparency. Scholars have increasingly been studying the impact of corporate social responsibility as a business strategy in for-profit companies. However, there is still lack of researches on how nonprofit organizations implement CSR into the strategy. As a consequence of the above remarks, a large part of nonprofit organizations fails to correctly implement a successful long term CSR strategy.
-->> Nonprofit organizations are facing a growing accountability challenge in the wake of corporate and nonprofit scandals. They are also facing increased demands for accountability and demonstrated results from the part of funders. This governance challenge has given rise to numerous international efforts to promote nonprofit accountability and transparency. In response to the demands of this new social system, nonprofit organizations begin to wonder what a responsible organization is like, as an exercise of assumption of its responsibilities. For this sector, the starting point of social responsibility is the coherence between the values and the social proposal being done from their action fields: cooperation for development, social, human aid or environment. In the nonprofit sector, we consider transparency and accountability as the great availability of relevant, reliable information about the performance, the financial situation, and the governance of the organization. They are the amount of information that an organization provides to the stakeholders about itself and how honestly and quickly it reveals this information. Nonprofit organizations have an ethical obligation to conduct their activities in a way that is accountable and transparent because normally they work for the community. Nonprofit organizations should convey information to the stakeholders about their missions, the activities, and the decision-making processes. This information should be easily accessible to the stakeholders and should create external visibility, community understanding and trust in the organization, conditions necessary to find donors. Nonprofit organizations work with communities and community donors need to know how their money is used have an ethical obligation to conduct their activities in a way that is accountable and transparent because normally they work for the community. Nonprofit organizations should convey information to the stakeholders about their missions, the activities, and the decision-making processes. This iinformation should be easily accessible to the stakeholders and should create external visibility, community understanding and trust in the organization, conditions necessary to find donors. Nonprofit organizations work with communities and community donors need to know how their money is used.