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Leadership
When company purpose harms the community it means to help
Good intentions don't stop corporate community work doing harm. Six ways company purpose goes wrong in the telling, and what CSR teams can do instead.
Most corporate community work starts with good intentions. Some of it still does harm.
The harm is rarely in the funding. It's usually in the telling: who the story is about, who gets to speak, what's left out, and what happens when the cameras leave.
This guide is for CSR, community investment and social impact leads. It sets out six ways company purpose goes wrong in the telling, and what to do instead.
Why I see both sides
I spent the first part of my career inside large companies, leading digital projects for NatWest, RBS, Lloyds and Vodafone. Since 2014 I've led a charity, the Naz and Matt Foundation, which means I've also been the partner on the other side of the table.
I've sat on both sides of the funding conversation. I know what a charity partner needs from a corporate partnership, and what a CSR lead needs to show the board.
Six ways company purpose does harm
1. The company becomes the hero
The story opens with the company's commitment and ends with the company's values. The charity partner appears halfway through, and the people it serves appear as recipients. Everyone inside the company feels good. Everyone outside it can tell.
Ask for: the partner and the people they serve to be the subject of the story, with your company's role told in a sentence or two.
2. The visit replaces the work
The pictures show your volunteers on one day of the year: branded T-shirts, a big cheque, a group shot. The charity's work on the other 364 days is invisible. That tells your staff and the public that the visit was the point.
3. Speaking for the community
The press release quotes your CEO on what the community needs. Nobody from the community is quoted at all. However well meant, that's taking their voice.
Ask for: at least one voice from the community or the partner organisation in everything you publish about the partnership, with their sign-off.
4. The neat ending
Corporate reporting likes a clean arc: a problem, your intervention, a transformation. Real community change is rarely finished in a reporting year. When stories are forced into a happy ending, the people in them can see it isn't true, and so can your partners. I'd much rather read "here's where things stand, what worked and what didn't".
5. Taking pictures without leaving any behind
If your company commissions photographs of a partner's work and holds the only licence, you've taken something from them. They can't use their own story in their own bids. Agree in writing that the partner can use the pictures too. I've written about how in give your charity partner a photoshoot.
6. Going quiet when it gets hard
Partnerships end, programmes struggle, and sometimes the issue a company backed becomes controversial. Companies that only talk about community work when it's comfortable leave partners exposed at exactly the moment they need support.
What good looks like
Since 2024 I've been photographing and filming the community programmes of one of the world's largest technology companies. What the programme lead valued most was seeing the start, the middle and the end, so the change was visible over time.
That's the shape of good corporate storytelling:
It follows the work over time, so the change can be seen.
It's led by the partner, with the company in a supporting role.
It's honest about what's unfinished.
It leaves the partner with something, pictures and stories they can use themselves.
It's agreed with the people in it before anything goes out.
Six questions to ask before you publish anything about a community partnership
Who is this story really about?
Is anyone from the community or the partner quoted, and did they approve it?
Does it show the partner's work, or only our visit?
Is the ending true, or just tidy?
Can the partner use these pictures and words themselves?
Would our partner be happy to share this on their own channels?
If the answer to the last question is no, the story isn't ready.
Where to start this week
Take your most recent partnership post or impact report section. Count how many times your company is named, and how many times the partner and the people they serve are named. If the first number is bigger, rewrite it the other way round.
If you'd like help finding and telling the stories behind your programmes and partnerships, that's what my storytelling consultancy is for.
Questions people ask
How can CSR storytelling harm a community?
By making the company the hero, speaking for people instead of letting them speak, forcing neat endings onto unfinished work, or taking pictures and stories the partner can't use themselves.
Should our company appear in partnership stories at all?
Yes, briefly and honestly. Say what you funded or did. Let the partner and the people they serve carry the rest.
How do we get partner sign-off without slowing everything down?
Agree the process at the start of the partnership: who approves what, and how quickly. It's much faster than fixing a story after it has upset someone.
Matt Mahmood-Ogston is a London-based social impact storyteller and documentary photographer. He founded the Naz and Matt Foundation in 2014 and has led it for more than 12 years.
