REPORTING

Columbia Bank

 

It was bank’s first foray into corporate responsibility reporting, and they wanted the real heroes—their employees—to stand in the spotlight.

“We love the writing in this report. You really nailed our focus and ethos, and that’s not easy to do.”

PHOEBE KRUEGER
VP, Corporate Social Responsibility Manager, Columbia Bank
WHAT WE DID
  • Discovery workshop
  • Editorial planning
  • Interviews
  • Community impact report
CHALLENGE

First step: step aside

Columbia Bank was excited to really dive into CSR reporting, although a number of mergers had made even greater impact possible starting in 2018. But they still wanted to highlight the great work their employees had done in 2017—efforts like volunteering 20,614 hours of their time, and collecting $303,929 through fundraising campaigns—in an initial Community Impact Report. As the Rosy team learned more, what rose to the top was the extent to which those community efforts are driven by the people who know their communities best—the employees who live in them. 

INSIGHT

Telling an employee-focused story can be as simple as stepping back and putting employee voices at the center of the report.

OUTCOME

Hometown at heart

We knew the report had to mirror the company’s ethos by letting the employees tell their stories and putting the bank’s messages on the back burner. We conducted employee interviews and transformed them into feature stories and employee spotlights focused on what really matters to employees and their local communities. United under the theme “hometown at heart,” the bank’s steps to the side during this first foray into reporting and lets their bottom-up approach to community engagement shine.

About Rosy

Rosy is a Portland, Oregon-based, woman-owned branding agency built for optimists: entrepreneurs and small to mid-sized business leaders who believe in the future of their brands.

© 2023 Rosy, LLC