What is the Percent Standard?
Before the CommunityMark, companies used the Percent Standard to profile the financial investment they made in the community. Businesses were asked to commit annually to reporting their community investment and to strive to achieve the aspirational one per cent donation of pre-tax profits to the community. For 20 years the Percent Standard was at the forefront of measuring and celebrating corporate community investment. Over that time companies became more sophisticated and challenged Business in the Community to develop a new standard to recognise their more holistic approach to corporate community investment. The CommunityMark was developed in 2007 in response to this, and 2006 was the final year that the Percent Standard existed as a standalone activity. The CommunityMark is aligned to the London Benchmarking Group (LBG) model, and asks companies to demonstrate how they quantitatively and qualitatively measure their community investment.
