Long gone are the days when businesses meant just revenues and profits. Instead, businesses of today have evolved into organizations that also contribute to the overall welfare of society. Today, businesses serve to create jobs and aid the community and its constituent individuals in a wide variety of ways. Thus, CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility is not limited to large corporates anymore. More and more businesses are getting involved in making their societies and communities better. In this context, we will promote the upcoming World Organ Donation Day on the 13th of August.
Importance Of Organ Donation
Considering the above, it is only because the media does its bit to spread awareness of its importance. People need to donate body organs and other associated transplantable body parts like tissue and eyes to save someone else. The organization United Network for Organ Sharing or UNOS, in short, estimates that about 120,000 people need lifesaving organ transplants in the US alone. Unfortunately, more than 21 people die each day due to the failure of finding a suitable donated organ. While donating an organ is in no way an easy, painless and straightforward process, it is an action that gives another person a new chance of leading a normal life.
Of particular interest are pediatric transplant centers with high survival rates that perform a wide range of organ transplants like liver, kidney, and heart. The following set of facts is sure to help illuminate the readers’ minds on the two constituent processes, i.e., donating an organ and then transplanting the same.
- One Single Donor Can Affect Eight Other Lives
No, you didn’t read it wrong. The organs and tissues of one individual are enough to benefit more than eight other lives, including some lifesaving ones. These donors help restore eyesight in others, get a fresh lease of life through replacement of damaged tissues with normal ones and restore the body’s other vital functions. It can be illustrated through the 2014 figures of 29,532 transplants taking place from a pool of mere 14,412 donors.
- Anyone Can Potentially Donate Organs
There are no set rules for being an eligible donor due to factors like race, age, and medical history. While there is indeed a medical history assessment process to figure out if a person is eligible to donate organs, this is performed by specialized organ donation professionals. Recent medical breakthroughs in transplantation science have made it possible for a more significant number of people to donate organs than at any other time in the past. Further, adults also have the option of making living donations. Living donations refer to instances where adults donate organs that are unnecessary for survival, like kidneys or part of an organ like the liver, to someone who needs it.
- You Do Not Have To Spend Any Money To Donate Organs
Donors and their families need not pay any medical fees or incur other medical expenditures when choosing to donate an organ or tissue. Instead, the agency that is collecting the organ typically pays for these costs associated with organ donation.
- Timing Is Essential In Organ Transplant
One of the most significant challenges to a successful organ transplant is its time-sensitive nature. A large team comprised of over ten medical professionals like nurses, surgeons, anesthesiologists, and other specialist professionals is involved. When the donor is ready to go ahead with the process, one surgeon prepares the recipient to receive the organ extracted from the donor at another medical center by another doctor.
Doctors are racing against time during a transplant, and coordinating the transfer and delivery processes is a tremendous challenge by itself.
Just consider the following fact; livers and kidneys can stay healthy outside the body for 24 hours while the figure stands at a significantly lower 5 hours for the heart.
Benefits of CSR For Businesses
Businesses should take a step in educating employees of the need and importance of organ donation. Companies with sufficient resources can also give time off for organ donating employees or provide other incentives to encourage such generosity. By doing so, the business itself stands to benefit from the following ways:
- It Boosts Employee Satisfaction Levels
It is little secret that the attitude towards the larger community surrounding a business is telling how it treats its employees. HR experts have found definite correlations between the respect and support they receive in their jobs, productivity, and job satisfaction levels. Many liberal HR respects concede that providing an opportunity to employees to serve as volunteers helps foster community feelings both within and outside the organization. This strategy is beneficial when you let them perform such tasks within the office working hours themselves. Such activities boost motivation levels, and employees take more pride in their work due to the personal development opportunity they receive.
While serving the community as a business employee, elevate them to the status of brand ambassadors. Such enhanced engagement and being invested with the business and the community surrounding it boosts productivity. And more engaged employees mean significantly better profits. A particular study found 21% better profits resulting from greater employee engagement. CSR thus keeps employees happy, promotes your business as a brand, and helps the larger community.
- Enhanced Public Perception Of Your Business
The digitization of the world makes it easy for businesses to attract attention for their socially responsible actions. It not only gives them greater exposure but helps them get accolades. That in itself is a significant PR achievement. In addition, when your business serves your community, it earns goodwill from your community, affecting your brand’s reputation positively. People feel better about purchases made from a business that has done a lot for them. It is only human nature.
You also need to publicize your socially responsible actions to the greatest extent possible. Let people know about the efforts your business and its employees have put in to benefit the people. Like many other aspects of marketing, social media affects how successful you ultimately are in achieving maximum exposure for your actions.
Greater Customer Loyalty Levels
Nielson found out in 2016 through a survey that a top purchasing factor for a whopping 56% of survey participants was brands with a known contribution towards society. Another 53% of the participants revealed that they viewed brands with solid community service as a leading purchasing factor.
When the personal values are in line with the importance of a business, that is known to boost customer loyalty significantly. Another thing to consider here is that demographically speaking, millennials now form the most significant population segment. Experts don’t fail to point out that this particular demographic is known for its strong preferences. They prefer businesses with a strong social message, adopting high ethical standards, and employing sustainable manufacturing techniques. By being socially responsible, your business acquires the ability to portray its high corporate values and its commitment to the community and employee engagement and teamwork.
- Fosters Creativity
For businesses trying to spark off that flight of imagination in their employees and develop innovative, new ideas that defy previous thinking, CSR is a good thing to try out. This is because CSR, by its very nature, encourages employees to practice new activities and get a fresh flow of blood by the time they return to their work desks.
Such involvement in social work encourages an employee to feel empowered. They start not only to see the bigger picture but start to contribute to it too actively. It gives them the mental freedom to develop new ideas and share them with the business management. Such innovative ideas encompass products, processes, and solutions to existing business processes under its scope. CSR makes employees aware of the values and passions of the business; as a result, employees feel more at home while coming up with new and better ways of going about their tasks.