Bread, milk and good neighborliness: From store research to community centers

The article reflects on the author’s three-year work on corporate social responsibility project “Centers of Local Community” (CLC), based on “Shops near Home” program of the “Pyaterochka” retail chain. In 2020 and 2021, the project concept was developed by “Pyaterochka” together with the consulting firm “Tsentsiper” and with support from the integrator You Social. In-depth interviews were conducted, field research data were collected, and pilot projects were implemented — first for five stores, then for fifty stores. In 2022 and 2023, the project expanded up to 354 stores across 9 regions with the help of two NGOs (“Good City of Petersburg” and “Good Stories”). With the participation of the “Charity Culture” Foundation, a study was conducted to identify social impacts of the project, which included interviews and focus groups with the project’s key stakeholders (11/28/2022 – 01/12/2023). Based on the assessment of the study results, the project was further expanded to 1,350 CLCs. The collected data demonstrate the transformation of typical scenarios for how stores are used as a workplace for employees and as shopping locations for customers due to the introduction of the new social project. The article also describes the mechanism of how corporate social responsibility projects emerge, including how the company selects projects for investment and the role that social anthropology and ethnographic methods play in this process.