Profits4Purpose

Corporate social responsibility (CSR): n. business practices or initiatives that benefit society

In today’s post-Enron society, industry leaders have found that branding themselves as a socially responsible company pays off. They can attract top talent, earn loyal customers, and avoid undesirable standoffs with government regulators and activists.

One increasingly popular way to practice CSR is through employee volunteerism and charitable giving. But when you are a national or even global company, it becomes difficult to implement a CSR program and quantify your collective social impact. That’s where Profits4Purpose (P4P) can help.

Meeting the CSR need

P4P launched in 2009 as a SaaS company in the CSR space, and they run world-class giving and volunteering programs. Their online software helps corporations share local volunteer opportunities with employees as well as track the number of hours and dollars a company’s employees give. Even when employees are spread across the globe, companies that partner with P4P can tell their collective impact stories to increase brand identity and promote social responsibility.

Now meet Chad Haertling, Director of Strategic Partnerships at P4P. Chad owns communication between P4P and their corporate partners. He helps prospective partners decide whether P4P is the best fit for their CSR program and then walks them through the final purchasing process.

Chad’s work can be a challenge because CSR is a relatively new initiative and many business leaders have never seen a product like P4P before. There is often a learning curve for partners as Chad explains how P4P operates and the processes they use to streamline CSR programs.

Streamlining communication to increase partnerships

To explain the flow of donations from an employee to a nonprofit, Chad relies on the power of visual communication using Lucidchart.

“Particularly when you’re talking about transactions like money changing hands through the donation process or P4P connecting to their payroll systems or HR database, it helps to visually display our process. I turned to Lucidchart to help explain it to people that have never seen something like P4P before.”

According to Chad, the result of using Lucidchart is better communication, increased transparency, and more corporate partnerships.

“Lucidchart helps streamline difficult conversations so that we can get through them much more quickly. It has helped us to establish more partnerships, because ultimately, it helps with transparency. With diagrams, we are able to be very transparent in the way fees are collected and distributed which affects our relationships in a positive light and helps companies make the right decision to go with P4P.”

A multifaceted tool

Diagrams have not only helped Chad to establish partnerships, but also to maintain and develop them. Because Lucidchart is a one-stop diagramming solution, Chad can use it to send all sorts of useful diagrams to his partners.

“Sometimes we share org charts to explain to clients which part of P4P they are working with and who is in charge of their team. Sometimes I use Lucidchart to show an implementation timeline. I’ve created diagrams that explain the onboarding process week by week in terms of what a company needs to do to get started and teams they need to involve.”

Chad’s diagrams travel. He can publish them as a PDF or JPEG image and then attach them to an email or insert them in a slide deck. Chad sends these to the partner representatives he speaks to on the phone so that they can take a diagram back to decision makers and confidently explain what Chad told them on the phone.

The best solution

Before Chad discovered Lucidchart, he used Google Draw to build diagrams. In Chad’s own words, the difference between Google Draw and Lucidchart is “just night and day.” He loves Lucidchart’s premade templates and the ease with which he can create customized diagrams.

“You guys have an excellent product. The templates that you have pre-generated help me start the brainstorming process because I can see what other SasS companies use to explain their product, and maybe I can use an idea from them that I haven’t even thought of before. Also, the way you connect boxes, you can literally connect a box to the next box to the next box. Google Draw took a lot more time to make a diagram look appealing.”

Once Chad found Lucidchart, he never looked back.

“I just started searching on Google, and Lucidchart was one of my first clicks. I’ve been a customer ever since. I like that it is very customized. I can create different shapes or colors around what is useful for me. I like that it works with all of the shortcuts that I’m already using.”

In other words, Chad sticks around because “it’s extremely useful, but so easy my mom can use it.”

Don't take Chad's word for it. Try Lucidchart for yourself.