Nonprofit Social Responsibility and Sustainability: Engaging Urban Youth through Empowerment

Abstract

To better understand how corporate communicators and human resources professionals can champion volunteer activities and youth engagement as evidence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability commitment, this chapter explores representations of urban youth conservation–environmental empowerment through a textual analysis of three organizations’ websites: Clearwater, the Philadelphia Zoo, and The Nature Conservancy. In addition to identifying common themes across the websites, I compared each program to the Critical Social Theory of Youth Empowerment (CSTYE) framework consisting of six dimensions for maximum success in empowering youth stakeholders (Jennings, Parra-Medina, Hilfinger-Messias, & McLoughlin, 2006). Recommendations are provided for organizations using environmental–conservation programs targeting young people – and other researchers of this phenomenon.

Citation

Bradford, L. (2017), "Nonprofit Social Responsibility and Sustainability: Engaging Urban Youth through Empowerment", Pompper, D. (Ed.) Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainability, and Ethical Public Relations (The Changing Context of Managing People), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 53-88. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78714-585-620181003