Three letters which most of us don’t know. What’s wrong is that they don’t know who it’s for.
CSR is an acronym for Corporate Social Responsibility. Corporate Social Responsibility is the activity a company does for the well-being of the community around it.
What is exciting about it is that it is both an economic and a social issue, because if a company helps the community around it, it builds its own brand, so it will be sympathetic, and this will greatly promotes business recovery.

CSR also includes promoting equal opportunities and supporting NGOs working for this reason – and that is where we come in.

Unfortunately, it is not yet evident in Hungary that a company is unthinkable without CSR activity, but there are encouraging signs. For the time being, we can talk about companies working on the international stage or foreign-owned companies.

For the People First Association 2021 has brought hope, confidence and faith in the goodness of company managers and employees. Our association was able to participate in the following CSR grants, for which we are very grateful  – even for the opportunities and the way of thinking!

• In June we participated in a GE (General Electric) competition, where we applied for pro bono support for communication and marketing. So we wouldn’t have gotten paid, we’d get professional help. Unfortunately, we didn’t win it, but the opportunity has already thrilled us.
• In July the Körber Hungária Machine Manufacturing Ltd., based in Pécs, launched a tender for activities aimed at supporting NGOs for the benefit of the community due to the Covid-19 outbreak. We were not successful in this competition either, but unexpectedly for Christmas we received a 150.000 HUF grant from the employees of Körber, who gave up their own Christmas present to support NGOs that did not win in the summer, but still like them! This is a really touching form of CSR, and it was a great pleasure for us.
• In September Spar had the opportunity to support on the basis of a tender, from which we were delighted to receive HUF 50,000 in the form of nice red vouchers. It will be of great use in our “InnClusive” Community Space!
• From October we have been invited to the usual free rehearsals of the Pannon Philharmonic, which is offered to NGOs dealing with disadvantaged people and people with disabilities. We’ve lived and live with it, we love free rehearsals, which we think are even more exciting than real shows.
• The very different ways in which CSR can be implemented also shows the case of our national conference in November. We ordered the catering from Reggeli (Breakfast and brunch restaurant), which is already well known for its social responsibility. Their CSR philosophy is to provide discounts to certain social NGOs from the tailored price. This has been a huge help to us.
• And in December we registered for OTP’s new program (the largest bank in Hungary), where a case can be selected within the framework of CSR, which can be supported by anyone with any amount, even a few hundred Forints, in several bank transactional ways, and the bank will send the donation to the selected organization. It’s a fantastic initiative, we hope to get in, it’s still a question of the future.

Thank you to the companies and firms for thinking like this and making the world a better place!
Go Pécs, let have as many small and large companies as possible that want to develop while helping communities. Let’s be exemplary in that too!