The London Benchmarking Group has grown from six community affairs managers to nearly 100 companies in ten years. Its model, says David Logan, could become the global standard for measuring community involvement. As the LBG model approaches its 10th anniversary, Briefing assesses its achievements and future challenges in adding value to company engagement in the community.
How did the LBG begin?
It was a ‘bottom up’ initiative by a group of six community affairs managers who started meeting in 1995 to improve the management of corporate community relations. They needed a modern definition of corporate community relations to take it beyond traditional charitable giving, and new skills to invest their scarce resources to benefit their companies and the community. They also needed ways of reporting their activities to stakeholders.
The group borrowed ideas from quality management techniques and applied them to community relations. They developed standard definitions and measures for activities within an input/output/impact analysis. This framework allowed them to benchmark performance within the group and identify a ‘best in class’ company from which the others could learn. It also let them use the language of business to discuss community relations.
What has it achieved?
The LBG model has helped companies improve the conceptualisation and management of their community programmes. Its meetings and training sessions are an important source of information and ideas for community affairs professionals.
It has led to the creation of a widely accepted standard for monitoring, measuring and reporting corporate community involvement. It communicates to stakeholders, particularly community organisations:
why companies implement programmes
what resources in terms of cash, time and in-kind are used
where the involvement takes place
what issues the company focuses on.
It lays the foundations for a process of continuous improvement in the scope and quality of work in the field across all kinds of companies and creates a strong framework for measuring what companies achieve in the community, not just what they give.
What are the challenges?
The LBG model clarifies our understanding of the inputs aspect of community contributions. It identifies key outputs from community activities such as leverage, community benefit and business benefit. It makes the case that for a major programme to be worthwhile, real impacts must flow from these outputs. But work needs to be done on measuring and reporting the outputs and most importantly the impacts that company community programmes achieve, to guide future investment strategies.
Is the use of the model expanding?
In the UK, around 100 leading companies use the model. It is also used by industry sectors- for example, five largest of the world’s oil companies apply the model to their 6400m of community contributions worldwide. It is also being adopted outside of the private sector by a group of leading universities.
The US-based Committee to Encourage Corporate Philanthropy is working with 50 companies to develop application of the model in North America. Organisations from over 12 countries have visited London to learn about and apply all or aspects of it locally.
Could the LBG become the global standard for measuring community involvement?
Yes! It has been tested in all types of companies and many cultural contexts and works well. Corporate community involvement professionals find it really helps them do their job better and communicate more effectively what they do internally and externally.
David is a founding director of The Corporate Citizenship Company. He started his career in CSR in 1980 as European Community Affairs Manager for Levi Strauss & Co. David helped found and manage the original London Benchmarking Group.
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