In this age of increased public scrutiny of corporations, companies and organizations must be cognizant and proactive of the communities not only that they serve but also the companies where their workers live. Specifically, companies have an interdependent relationship with the communities where they reside. The company and its staff must coexist with other companies, citizens, and media within a community. As citizens, the company, its managers and employees have a responsibility to strategically develop effective relationships with a variety of publics within the community. Organizations foster these relationships through the process of community relations.

The goal of community relations is to match the needs of the community with the concerns of the employees. The community provides housing, education, health care and lifestyle choices to the organization; whereas the company or organization supplies jobs, taxpayers, retail spending and other types of revenue sources. Matching the goals and objectives of the community and the organization requires strategic planning and strategic campaign execution. Practitioners involved with community relations must understand the structure, strengths and weaknesses of a community before setting community outreach goals and objectives for the organization.

There are a variety of community relations approaches to different organizational scenarios. From a company's announcement that it plans to move into a community or the decision to leave a community, community relations is the vital link to establish relationships with various community publics. Organizational involvement in local political campaigns or a local non-profit fundraising event needs to match the company's community relations goals and objectives.

As companies continue to struggle with issues such as economics and technological advances, the need to have strong community relations will become more important. Traditional community relations efforts such as support for local education and the arts has developed into elaborate cause-related marketing campaigns designed to foster benefits from both a social and economic perspective. In addition, the future for practitioners of community relations will require strategic planning to deal with the positive and negative consequences of community activism from a variety of publics within a local community.