Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is playing an increasingly important part in the work of businesses and companies across the country, making a huge impact for non-profit and community organisations.

CSR is all about integrating social and community issues into the vision and everyday work of an organisation on a voluntary basis: it translates into support for local groups and clubs, philanthropic giving, volunteering programmes for staff, workplace training and employment opportunities for disadvantaged groups, and many more workplace practices.

Here at Áiseanna Tacaíochta (ÁT), we are excited to begin exploring new collaborations in this area, creating opportunities to raise essential funds for our work, and, just as importantly, promoting disability awareness and inclusion in the workplace and in new communities.

Your support in this is invaluable.

How can I help?

You are the first link between us and the company you work for, so there are many ways that you can support us.

Get to know your company’s CSR policy

Every company supports their community differently and their CSR practices can be more tightly aligned to some values or causes than others, so it’s really helpful to know the CSR policy of your employer.

If you know of any CSR funding opportunities run by your organisation – such as charity partnerships, staff Charity of the Year campaigns, charity funds or company trusts, matched staff fundraising, or even once-off sponsorship events – we would love to chat to you about them.

Equally, if your company is interested in volunteer programmes and employee engagement, we have loads of ideas of how everyone can come together to empower people with disabilities – it would be great if you could let us know about them.

Nominate us

Your voice as an employee is so important: many companies donate money to charity every year, supporting charities nominated by their employees – sometimes individually or by an employee panel – or which employees can get actively involved in. If your company gives through a fund in this way, it would mean a huge amount to us to be your chosen charity. We will support you with anything you need from us as part of this, but even just knowing that the opportunity is there is a huge support to us.

Raise awareness

We’re still a young organisation, but we truly believe that we can have a big impact in the lives of people with disabilities and their families in Ireland. It’s really important that as many people as possible know about all that we do and stand for, so that we can make that belief the reality together. For companies which choose a Charity of the Year, for example, the more support from staff for a nominated charity, the stronger chance it has of being selected – so, if you can help us to spread the word about our organisation in your workplace, it would be a great help to us! Just let us know of anything that we can do to support you with it, whether that’s providing information and leaflets, meeting or delivering a presentation to your colleagues, or even holding an open morning in your office.

Get active

A lot of companies greatly encourage employees in their own charity work and involvement, offering a growing range of initiatives, such as matching employee fundraising, enabling payroll donations, or supporting volunteer hours with the employee’s chosen charity. Even if nothing is in place yet, most employers are really open to new ideas. Your support with fundraising and volunteering has such a positive impact on everything that we do: why not let your employer know how and why you’re helping us, and see if there are any support options there for you?

For any information or support on how you can help us to make an impact with CSR, please contact our Administration, Dearbhla Ní Mhaolagáin, by emailing dearbhla@theatnetwork.com

Aiseanna Tacaiochta

Corporate Social Responsibility