GE1806

Social Responsibility
• It is an ethical framework that suggests that any entity, whether individual or organizational, must
manage its essential resources so that they may benefit the welfare and interests of the society in
which it operates.
• It is a framework that is mostly associated with corporate entities, namely businesses and industries;
it defines not just how companies earn their money, but also on how they spend it.
• It follows the basic tenet that anyone with the ability to affect change must have an imperative to use
it.
• It has many methods in which it can be undertaken, including but not limited to the following:
o Energy conservation (i.e., renewable energy, recycling)
o Volunteering
o Empowerment of other socially responsible entities

Volunteerism
• It is the principle that a person can become a volunteer.
• It involves someone who does a task, job, or service freely without asking for anything in return.
• Most of these tasks usually have a goal that contributes to the welfare of the native community.

Social Mobilization
• The long-term goal of social mobilization is to create community will and commitment.
• With the context of a project, it helps generate immediacy and a call for action from the
community level around a policy-related advocacy objective.
• It also helps create an impetus and a call for action around a developmental goal.

As an undertaking, it contains certain features:

o It is a broad-scale movement. It engages and mobilizes a large number of people in action to
achieve development goals.
o It is a planned process. It seeks to facilitate change and development.
o It entails accountability. It takes into account the felt needs of the people, embraces the
critical principle of community involvement, and seeks to empower individuals to action.
o It includes problem recognition. It begins with a conscious recognition of problems then seeks
the probable solutions to these problems.
o It is problem-solving advocacy. It involves building consensus between those affected and
those who have the solution to the problems to arrive at a decision, including the allocation
of adequate resources.
o It includes decision-making. It includes initiations, discussion, and deciding political will,
action, and resource commitment.
o It fosters acceptance or commitment. It generates acceptance of new ideas, attitudes, and
technologies.
o It avails of all communication resources. It uses all available and potential communication
resources for effective networking and active mobilization of information.
o It is a network for institutional sustainability. It sustains awareness, cooperation,
commitment, and action to achieve the common goal leading to the attainment of the
community’s vision, mission, and goal for the development of self-sufficiency.

It also contains important elements that allow it to achieve its set objectives:
o Advocacies – They identify the prospective actors involved in initiating, planning, and
implementing a community program or service delivery.

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o Information Dissemination, Education, and Communication – They allow the introduction of

important facts about the project or program; they may come in many forms, such as
brochures, infographics, videos, commercials, etc.

Social mobilization involves certain processes:

o Community Organization is the building of a network of like-minded people (coalitions,
individuals, organizations, community) that have the same advocacy.
o Capacity Building is the process of enabling people to do something significant for themselves
that the rest of the community can sustain.

Undertaking any form of social mobilization can allow people to reap the benefits, such as the following:
o Poverty Alleviation – Social mobilization is an important tool in the poverty alleviation
process. It enables communities to help themselves engage in activities that will solve their
problems and track poverty in its multi-dimensional form.
o Promoting Democratic Governance – Poverty and bad governance mutually reinforce each
other. Social mobilization must be institutionalized within the government to encourage
community participation in decision-making, to build capacity for participatory planning, to
form a common vision of development, and to ensure transparency.
o Conflict Prevention – Social mobilization helps organize people to address common problems
and to collectively improve the socioeconomic conditions in an equitable, democratic and
transparent manner. The possibility of conflict can be significantly reduced.
o Sustainable Environment – Social mobilization organizes people to manage their natural
resources better, fight illegal practices, and establish organizations that promote sustainable
environmental management programs through appropriate legal, regulatory, and
institutional frameworks and policy dialogue.

References:
BusinessDictionary. (n.d). Social responsibility. Retrieved on September 27, 2018, from
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/social-responsibility.html.
The Borgen Project (n.d). What is the definition of social responsibility? Retrieved on September 27, 2018, from
https://borgenproject.org/definition-social-responsibility/
Office 365 Training Center. (2018). In Microsoft Office. Retrieved from https://support.office.com/en-us/office-training-
center
Volunteering options. (2008). What is development? Retrieved on September 27, 2018, from
http://www.volunteeringoptions.org/VolunteeringDevelopment/WhatisDevelopment/tabid/78/Def
ault.aspx
UNICEF. Communication for development: Social mobilization. Retrieved on September 27, 2018, from
http://www.unicef.org/cbsc/index_42347.htm

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