The Social Good Revolution

In recent years there has been a huge shift in the value and importance that both people and organisations place on social good. Together, both the rise of social media and the coming of age of the socially minded millennial generation are working to expand our understanding of what it means to be socially responsible – best described as a social good revolution.

Thankfully, gone are the days when it was thought that business’ sole responsibility was to turn a profit or when giving back to society was a by-product of public relations activity rather than a central focus.

Social media, by its nature, has made it possible for individuals to not only be better informed of social issues themselves but to directly demand social awareness and action from the businesses they engage with.

The result has been that businesses of all sizes and from all industries have been forced to pay attention to the issues that affect their communities, or risk losing the goodwill and support of their customers especially their millennial customers, who are more likely than any other generation to support businesses who share their social interests.

Of course, some businesses have a social good focus as a philosophy even without the changes brought on by the social good revolution, and I am proud to say that Republic Bank is one of them. Our publics know our philosophy as the Power to Make a Difference Programme (PMAD).

Not only has PMAD experienced considerable growth in terms of the scale of projects that we have been able to execute and the impact we have been able to have on the lives of others, but the rise of social media has given us greater opportunities to share our efforts, to raise awareness for the issues that are important to us and to motivate others to get involved. Overall, we have been able to maximise the impact of our social good efforts in ways we had never imagined, all in the interest of building stronger and more resilient societies.

Much has changed for the nature of social good and for the value that we place on it in our everyday lives. But with each change has come a deeper, more meaningful understanding of what it means to do good and a broader, more positive impact on the communities we serve. As far as we’ve come, I expect that the best is yet to come for the social good revolution and I’m excited to see what shape it takes next!