Where Most Needed

The news reports (like this one) regarding a survey of consumer attitudes toward corporate social responsibility mentioned that respondents thought that corporate philanthopy was of relatively little consequence as an indicator of social responsibility (how a company treats is workers is more important). 

The reports didn't mention that the main thrust of the survey was to determine the difference in attitudes between people who use blogs and podcasts and the rest of the population.  The full report ("Rethinking Corporate Responsibility") by PR firm Fleisman-Hillard for the National Consumers League (EIN 53-0242038 Form 990) can be found here. 

Some observations from the report:

• Internet search engines are the single most popular web/Internet resource for everybody (97% of the blog fans and 79% of others), beating email by 20 percentage points overall.
• Blog fans are slightly more concentrated in the Northeast and West, less in the Midwest & South.
• Internet search engines are the most popular source of information about corporate social responsibility, followed by websites of "consumer watch groups" and discussions with friends & family.  Newspapers, company web sites, annual reports, television and radio are far behind.
• Blog fans are much more likely to seek out information on social issues, 33% saying they do so "all the time" vs. 16% among those who don't read blogs. 
• Blog fans are more active, with 80% engaging in some kind of actvity relating to social causes.
• The bad news is that the most reported activity involves emailing friends and family or companies themselves. 
• However, 38% of blog users (vs. 15% of nonusers) reported making an on-line donation.

That last point is the bankable one, maybe the talking point that gets nonprofit management interested in blogging.