How many organisations do corporate social responsibility (CSR) meaningfully? Hand on heart, are your CSR activities carried out merely to tick a box in your year-end results, or are you actively making a commitment to having a positive and profound impact in your local community?

With the new impetus for CSR in the UK, thanks in part to the Government’s Big Society initiative – of which I’m a huge supporter – now is the time to engage in community initiatives and get involved as though you mean it, rather than regard it as empty rhetoric.

If you’re a business wondering where the hell to start, then I’ll point you in the direction of the Industrial and Provident Societies (IPS) model. Bear with me here.

IPS enterprises are run as a co-operative – think of housing associations or working men’s clubs, for example. To qualify for registration under the Industrial & Provident Societies Acts, a body must be a ‘bona-fide co-operative’ or a ‘society for the benefit of the community’. It has limited liability and a mutual structure: investors become shareholders (one-member, one vote) and this funding goes to help the local community.

What a golden opportunity this represents. OK, so the caveats are that return on capital must be limited, and profits have to be shared equitably among members, but IPS enterprises already have a combined turnover or £27.4bn – and I think it’s a cracking way for social enterprise to put its money where its mouth is. I also believe we will see more IPS set-ups as the Big Society evolves.

My soon-to-be announced new CSR initiative in Oxfordshire will run along IPS lines, and will invite local businesses to help disadvantaged young people in the county.

Getting involved through the IPS model means that not only are you ticking a mighty huge CSR box, but you’re engaging explicitly and purposefully with your community. Surely social enterprise could well be worth exploring.