Five years ago, the co-operative trust company in canada, engaged its staff in developing a formal strategy to articulate the company's social values. It was important both, as a co-operative organisation, and in recognition of the principles upon which it was founded, that the company developed ways to articulate and put into action the principle of concern for community.

The executive and management team, together with a keen staff team from all areas of the company, formed the social values committee, and consulted broadly with the trust's 205 staff to develop what today is its social values strategy. In addition, research was done with other co-operative and financial organisations and groups involved in csr.

Approved by the board of directors and reviewed on an annual basis, the strategy focuses on community and co-operative principles and is the cornerstone of co-operative trust's social responsibility program. The strategy states that the company wishes "to be recognized as a meaningful contributor to the communities and constituents we serve by actively demonstrating commitment to social values."
http://www.co-operativetrust.ca

In undertaking the initiative, co-operative trust recognised, that while there are opportunities to develop marketplace advantages for its social role, this is not the driver of its social values strategy. Objectives of the strategy include:

• Corporate giving that recognises the needs of the community and the interests of its constituents
• Partnership and leadership with other co-operative organisations in support of corporate philanthropy activities
• Involvement, encouragement, and honouring of staff that support and/or serve its communities.

Co-operative trust's social values committee is staffed by volunteer employees who are responsible to recommend activities and initiatives, give life to the social values strategy, and make recommendations on social value issues related to workplace practices, operational practices and community development.

While many other co-operatives may have a similar staff structure to oversee their community relation's activities, what is unique about co-operative trust's approach is that they have tied it to their strategic balanced scorecard model. every year, corporately and within departments, key social value deliverables are set and progress is reported and contributes to the business plan. some deliverables include an annual employee views survey, achievement of the donations policy, and consistency with the 'imagine' program guidelines. (Imagine is a national program that promotes a corporate giving benchmark of one per cent of pre-tax profits averaged over three years.)

As CEO Myrna Bentley says: "A strong commitment to community is an important part of who we are -- both individually and corporately". The annual staff survey reveals that a majority of staff believes the company has a strong interest in the well being of the community. not only do current staff believe this, but prospective staff do as well. After being named one of canada's top 100 employers, co-operative trust received a flood of résumés from people wanting to work for one of canada's best. Even though the company does not have retail operations, it still has a community reputation for strong csr values, a key component of the designation as top 100 employer. This helps not only attract quality staff, but retain them as well.