Corporate social responsibility remains a challenge for a lot of companies. Most have a strategy to reduce their environmental footprint or give money back to their communities but do these acts resonate with the employees of the company?
The Social Coin is a company that does just that. It engages employees of an organisation and motivates them to do acts of kindness everyday. The way it works is, if you have a social coin, you give it to someone that needs help and they give it to someone else building a chain of kindness. You can share your story online in order to inspire more people to participate. At the end of this chain of kindness all that participated are invited to an event to celebrate helping each other.
Watch the video to see how it works!
Social Coin have been working with Cisco in order to showcase their employees' talents and give back to their local communities. In 6 months, through 200 marketing leaders, Cisco generated 1000 acts of kindness, improving the company's culture and reputation. So Cisco now has 200 advocates of their corporate social responsibility plan. These advocates are their own employees that were happy to participate in giving back to their communities.
From a gamification point of view, the social coin is the dream of philanthropists and socialisers. (Remember the different user types). Giving help to other people motivates philanthropists, while sharing online, making social connections and relating to similar problems motivates socialisers. It also relates really well with performance tracking and feedback as it is easy to keep data on the act of kindness that members of the organisation have performed. That way the organisation has user generated data about their corporate social strategy and its effectiveness.
We are looking forward to seeing more ideas like The Social Coin that address the needs of organisations in a way that is engaging and friendly to local communities!