A few weeks ago I attended an international two-day CSR conference in Presov, Slovakia organized by the Carpathian Foundation. I represented PRIME – Hungary there as our organization is a great advocate of CSR and we are eager to be up-to-date on this very relevant topic. Two thumbs up for the organizers – the conference was very professional and the social event on the first night was a blast (we had dinner at an atmospheric inn in a small local village). New friendships were formed and I’m hopeful that PRIME Hungary will be able to cooperate with these vibrant and lively organizations.

My major conclusion after the conference was that CSR is starting to enter into the public debate in Central and Eastern Europe, research studies are made and CSR is taught in major universities (not a single course though but as part of another subject).

Businesses are starting to realize that CSR is more than simple sponsorship and they are initiating projects which serve the needs of the community they are working with. On the other hand we are still far away to state that CSR is getting closer to the core of business strategies.

The most important part of the conference for me was a workshop which centered on how CSR could be integrated into business strategy. After listening to the presentations we were to rate the companies according to their commitment to CSR. At this point I was really shocked to see that public relations was considered to be “talking-but-not-doing-anything” by the moderator. Also in the official recommendations to businesses there was a point which said: “Businesses have to decide whether they want to do CSR or PR”.

As the representative of Prime - Hungary I knew this was my time to make my entry. In a five-minute “speech” I argued that there is a great distinction between public relations and mere publicity. The former is a two-way, open communication between the company and its stakeholders which encourages feedback and an open debate. The latter on the other hand is much more a one-way communication when feedback is not considered to be a necessity. My point was made and the participants all agreed that we have to differentiate the above two.

This was only one battle won though. The war is still out there and if I wanted to be realistic then I would say we still have much to do. The image of public relations is – for one reason or another – still blurred and the public sees only fractures of what we really do. We as public relations professionals – or wannabes at least – are seen as flicks and spin doctors simply because the true values of PR is never communicated to the public. In Hungary public relations is almost a synonym to bad political spin. Globally public relations enters the public arena through the cases of PR misbehavior ie. bad apples in the basket. Will this ever change?

PRIME – Hungary hopes so. We are planning to set in motion in cooperation with other EU PRIME member organizations a public relations campaign next year which will have to major goals: to communicate the real values of PR and to inject the CSR concept into the youth.

After all the youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow. To be misinformed on the above topics in definitely not acceptable.

Written by: Csaba Gábor Tóth