CSR Team Building: How to Put a Team Day in Your ESG Report

Every year someone in a company is asked to write the CSR section of the annual report, and every year they open the document and find there is nothing concrete to put in it. A statement of intent is not a result, and the person reading the report knows it.

We have run charity team building since 2011, and the reporting question comes up in almost every conversation we have with leadership and HR. It is why our events end with a charity collecting equipment in front of the team, rather than with a donation nobody sees.

This guide covers what a report actually needs, why a physical build is easier to evidence than a cash gift, which events produce the clearest figures, how to match the charity to what you already support, and what we send you afterwards. Our page for leadership teams has the shorter version.

What is CSR team building?

CSR team building is a team event where the output goes to a charity. The team day and the charitable contribution happen in the same afternoon, on the same budget line.

The difference from a normal team day is the evidence. Your own people built something, a named charity took it away, and there are photographs of both. That is what separates being able to say your organisation gives back from being able to show what it gave.

The difference from a volunteering day is the team dynamic. A fence gets painted whether the team worked together or not. A bike does not get finished unless they do.

What does an ESG report actually need from a team day?

Keep it to four things, and get all four on the day.

• What was built. Bikes, sports wheelchairs, prosthetic hands, care packages.
• How many. Five bikes. Two wheelchairs. Twenty care packages.
• Who received it. The named charity, and what they do.
• When. The date the charity collected it.

Add the number of your own people who took part, and you have a paragraph with figures in it rather than adjectives. Add the photograph of the handover and it becomes the strongest page in the section, because very little else in a CSR report is that concrete.

Why is a physical build easier to evidence than a donation?

A cash donation is a line in the accounts. It is real and it helps, but it is invisible on the page and nobody in your organisation was involved in making it happen.

A build is a thing that exists. Every bike is safety checked by our mechanics and collected by the charity, almost always the same day. Wherever we can, the charity collects in front of your team, which gives you a photograph of the moment it changed hands.

The figure is not an estimate either. Five bikes is five bikes, and the charity that took them can say so. That is a claim an auditor, a journalist or a client can check, and it holds.

Which charity team building events give the clearest figures?

Some builds produce a number that reads well on its own, without a paragraph of explanation around it.

Charity Bike Build. Bikes to people leaving hostels, young carers and families with no car. More than 3,000 built since 2011. The safe choice for a mixed audience, and 25 bikes from a conference is a line worth having. See the Charity Bike Build.

Performance Wheelchair Challenge. Sports wheelchairs to inclusive clubs and SEND schools. 346 donated so far, and each one gives a young person years of access to sport. The strongest single donation in the range for a report. See the Performance Wheelchair Challenge.

The Hand Project. Prosthetic hands to upper limb amputees in countries with no health service. It lands hardest with a health or pharma audience, and the recipient feedback arrives nine to twelve months later, which gives the following year's report a second line.

Great Philanthropic Challenge. Care packages specified by the charity, so they can match a cause your business already supports. 631 delivered so far.

How do you match the charity to what you already support?

The charity is chosen to fit, not picked from a list. If your business has a stated focus, children, health, homelessness, sport, there is an event whose donation fits it, and we suggest the match.

If you already have a charity partner, the Great Philanthropic Challenge lets that charity write the list of what goes in the care packages. The report then names the partner you already have, with a new figure next to it.

If you do not have one, we match you to a charity, and the report names a real organisation with a real address rather than a category.

Why does the same afternoon do two jobs?

The person who books a team day and the person who signs off the CSR budget are often not the same person, and they want different things from it.

HR wants a day people remember, with everyone involved and nothing that puts an individual on the spot. Our page for HR and people teams covers that side. Leadership wants equipment delivered to a named charity on a date they can put in a report.

A charity build satisfies both in one afternoon, for one price. Our guide to what charity team building costs has the figures, and none of them change by location or date.

What do you receive after the event?

After every event we send the story: photographs, the donation figures, and copy your team can post.

That is the part that makes the report easy. The numbers are already counted, the charity is already named, and the photographs are already taken. Nobody on your side has to chase the charity for a quote or count bikes from a phone picture. Read how it works for the full run through from the first call to the handover.

Does it matter that o3e is a B Corp?

To a procurement team, usually yes. We are a certified B Corporation, which means we are independently verified on how we treat our people, our charity partners and the planet. It is an audit that is renewed, not a badge bought once.

If your supplier list has a sustainability question on it, the answer is on the B Corp directory. We also hold full public liability cover and can send risk assessments and method statements for your compliance team.

How to plan a team day that goes in the report

1. Decide what the report needs. A donation figure, a named charity, a headcount of your own people involved, or all three. 2. Pick the donation that fits your focus. Bikes for a mixed audience, wheelchairs or hands for health, care packages for a charity you already support. 3. Count the room. A rough headcount and a rough date. Put your headcount into the price tool and three events with prices come back in about a minute. 4. Book the room you already have. Give us the room size and we will say whether it fits. 5. Write the paragraph in advance. What, how many, who, when. Fill in the numbers after the handover, from the figures we send.

The bottom line

A CSR report needs things that happened, not things that were intended. A charity build gives you what was built, how many, who received it and when, with a photograph of the moment it changed hands.

It is the same afternoon HR would have booked anyway. The difference is that this one leaves something behind that a charity needed, and a paragraph in the report with a number in it.