In this episode of Your Customer, Your Success, Gary sits down with Suzanne Smith, a nationally recognized voice on social impact and corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Suzanne is the founder and CEO of Social Impact Architects, creator of the Social Trendspotter blog, a TEDx speaker, and a professor of social entrepreneurship, CSR, and ethical leadership at UT Austin and Duke. Her world lives at the intersection of government, policy, and business, and she spends her days helping organizations design solutions that balance purpose and performance.

Gary and Suzanne breakdown:

Why CSR isn’t just a big-company game
How small businesses can start with low-cost, high-impact community initiatives
The evolution from “checkbook philanthropy” to embedded, strategy-level CSR
What happens when brands get CSR spectacularly wrong
How CSR ties directly to customer loyalty, employee engagement, and talent attraction
Why Gen Z is forcing companies to move from “pretty words” to “receipts”

In this episode, you’ll learn:

A practical 4C framework for CSR
How a franchise oil-change shop turned in-kind support for an after-school van into:
Why silence on key issues can be as damaging as tone-deaf campaigns
How CSR is increasingly being owned by HR and impact leaders, not just marketing
Why Gen Z will sometimes trade a bit of pay for purpose and what that tells us about employer brand

They wrap with Gary’s classic “Does It Hold Water?” segment on whether CSR is “too risky” in today’s polarized climate, plus Chip Shots on behavioral psychology, Oprah, LinkedIn vs. Facebook, and the professional risks that pay off! Check it out!

Chapters

01:15 Intro

03:01 Why Small Businesses Misunderstand CSR

04:31 A Great Small Business Story That Changed Everything

09:36 Suzanne’s Four C’s

12:32 CSR Across Every Size of Organization

14:52 Where CSR Initiatives Start to Go Wrong

19:58 How CSR Shapes Customer and Employee Experience

22:14 CSR and Employee Retention

24:48 Why Gen Z employee say they will take a pay cut

26:58 Consistency and CSR

30:32 How Any Business Can Start Small and Make an Impact

33:04 Does It Hold Water?

35:45 Chip Shots

🔗 Connect with Suzanne:

Website: www.meetsuzanne.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SocialImpactArchitects

X: https://x.com/socialtrendspot

Substack: https://socialtrendspot.substack.com

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/company/social-impact-architects and https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzannesmithtx

TEDx “Everyone is a Changemaker”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJOonQUXL0E

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/socialtrendspot

🏷️ Tags

Social Customer Care, Social Media ROI, CX Strategy, Customer Experience, Social Listening, Tagging & Labeling, AI in CX, Emotional Marketing, B2B Voice, Brooke Sellas, PodMatch