Corporate social responsibility: A new perspective for alleviating poverty while maximizing profits

There is evident and mounting need in the poorest regions of the world for sustainable solutions to help individuals suffering from extreme poverty rise out of their current situation and onto a path of prosperity. Professionals and grassroots innovators worldwide have acknowledged this global issue and are responding with fervor by understanding the needs of individuals in underserved markets and then creating products that meet those needs. We provide a new conceptual model that has the potential to bridge the capacity of companies and the needs of the underserved, by harnessing the opportunity of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Analysts have suggested that CSR initiatives have the potential to effectively address global poverty and economic development issues. This paper makes a business case for corporations to align their CSR strategies with core business activities like design, development, and dissemination to encourage the availability of high quality, income-generating tools and products to people in developing countries at a low cost. This could lead to an exploration of the various possibilities of combining financial viability with social good, especially with the corporate sector today showing its willingness to interact closely with the non-profit sector.