ROCKVILLE, MD - Ford Motor Co., General Motors, The Coca-Cola Company, Verizon Communications and Sun Microsystems are among the major corporations vying for honors in the 2006 Corporate Social Responsibility Awards. Presented by PR News, the leading trade publication covering the public relations and corporate communications industries, this is the only national honor celebrating Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), in which corporations successfully demonstrate that altruism, philanthropy and employee commitment to "do good" can go a long way towards making an impact on a community, on key stakeholders, and on a company's bottom line.

The award winners will be announced at a June 20th awards breakfast in Washington, DC sponsored by Cone Inc. and CSRwire. The finalists were selected in nine CSR communications categories including: Community Affairs, CSR Reporting, Diversity, Philanthropy, Environmental, Community Affairs, Human Rights and Business Ethics. The full list of finalists is online at: http://www.prnewsonline.com/awards/csr/previous_win2005.html

The hundreds of entries in this year's CSR Awards showcased corporate citizenship at its best, from campaigns communicating disaster relief and human rights initiatives to PR strategies conveying an organization's land conversation efforts and battles to combat literacy.

"If our CSR award entries are any indication, it's clear that PR professionals now understand their critical role in moving corporate citizenship to the top of the priority list," notes Diane Schwartz, vice president and group publisher of PR News, also the publisher of the Guide to Best Practices in Corporate Social Responsibility, which is available at prnewsonline.com.

The continued growth in the number of entries in this PR News award program coincides with statistics that point to the growing importance of CSR in the business mix. Eight in 10 Americans say that corporate support of causes wins their trust in that company, a 21% increase since 1997, according to the most recent Cone Corporate Citizenship Study. And 86% of respondents in the Cone Survey say they want companies to talk about their efforts, but only four in 10 say companies are doing that well.

PR News' CSR Awards are sponsored by cause-branding agency leader Cone Inc, along with industry partner CSRwire. The PR News family of products includes PR News, the Platinum PR Awards, PR People Awards, CSR Awards, The 100 Best Case Studies Book, Guidebook to Best Practices in CSR; Guidebook to Best Practices in Measurement and the upcoming Crisis Management Guidebook.

Profiles of the winners will appear in PR News in a special CSR Awards Issue in June. For more information on advertising in the special issue, contact Diane Schwartz at dschwartz@accessintel.com or call 301-354-1761.

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