Building Community and Connection in Business with Jennifer Bradbury

**SPEAKER_2** (0:04)
The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media, and programmatic ad experts.

**Stephen Zekach** (0:17)
Mike, one of these times we're going to have to bug out on the show and just say, we've got tech problems and Martha and Michelle in the background are going to have to take over and host the show. We've got to plan this out. I think it will happen.

**Mike Lusky** (0:31)
Done deal. I love it.

**Stephen Zekach** (0:33)
Welcome back to the show, everyone. I'm Stephen Zekach, joined by my co-host, Mike Lusky. Today, we are talking about how businesses can go beyond transaction and build real community, both inside their organizations and with their customers through corporate social responsibility and philanthropy. More than ever, companies are being called to stand for something bigger than their bottom line.
And the brands that rise to this challenge create stronger relationships, deeper engagement, and lasting impact in the world. And it turns out sometimes it's almost the better move profitability-wise to go down this path. Usually, all the stats are indicating that. Mike, can you introduce our guest today?

**Mike Lusky** (1:18)
Yeah, absolutely, Stephen. Super excited to get us started. So our guest today is Jennifer Bradbury. She's a corporate social responsibility leader with over 20 years of experience helping brands to turn purpose into impact, which we love to talk about purpose on this show. We know it's a really important aspect. Additionally, Jennifer has dedicated her career to helping businesses integrate philanthropy, social impact, and community building into their brand strategies. She spent nearly a decade at the helm at the Taco Bell Foundation, where she led efforts to scale fundraising, expand charitable initiatives, and create purpose-driven programs that engage both the employees and customers, which I think is critical. And we'll hear more about here on the show today. Today, she works with organizations to build and scale their CSR programs and drive real social change, so while also strengthening brand reputation and business growth. So, Jennifer, we are so happy to have you on the show. Welcome to the show.

**Jennifer Bradbury** (2:23)
Thank you. I'm excited to be here.

**Mike Lusky** (2:26)
It's nice to have you. Maybe just to get things started, give us a little bit of a big picture. Why is corporate social responsibility more important now than ever for businesses?

**Jennifer Bradbury** (2:40)
Yeah, that's a great question and a great place to start. It's no longer a PR and marketing strategy, right? I think for a long time, that's what it was, or it was a CEO's side project, but now it's a business imperative. I think organizations that proactively embrace CSR, they're not only making a positive impact, but they're truly ensuring their own long-term success. In my experience, I think people and companies that build CSR into their actual business models, often find they grow innovation, they find new growth opportunities, they truly differentiate themselves in the marketplace. And I think also the thing that's really important these days is that CSR helps build resilience against like economic, environmental, social crises, which we all know are happening regularly these days. So when you have a strong social impact narrative, you really can navigate challenges more effectively and I think maintain trust in uncertain times.

**Stephen Zekach** (3:47)
Yeah, Jenrin, I think you mentioned that CSR is sometimes seen as something separate from that core business strategy. But in reality, it can drive real business success. What's the connection between CSR and brand loyalty?

**Jennifer Bradbury** (4:03)
Yeah, I think there's a couple pieces. There's the consumer piece and the employee piece, right? So consumers and especially, I think, younger generations today, they are increasingly preferring brands that align with their values. So companies that have a strong CSR initiative, they build trust faster, which I think just enhances their brand loyalty and ultimately attracts the customer and maintains them, even when business isn't going the way they're hoping it would. And then employees, I mean, finding employees to work these days can be a struggle, right? Finding a workforce, especially in my background of coming from QSR, there's high turnover rates, and employees want to work at purpose-driven workplaces. So organizations that really, I think, prioritize social impact, sustainability, and even like ethical practices and all, you know, basics like that. They just tend to attract and retain top talent while helping the bottom line, boosting overall workplace morale, boosting productivity, those kinds of things. So I think it's necessary for customers, it's necessary for employees.

**Mike Lusky** (5:21)
I love that you mentioned that about the employees, because the employees really do care. In fact, there is a study that I came across in preparation for this show. It talked about companies that are integrating CSR into their culture, and they've seen employee engagement go up by upwards of 20 percent, and then seeing turnover drop off by 50 percent. And that was from a study that was done by Deloitte, titled actually Purpose at Work.