by Jonathan Gill, Corporate Advisory Manager, CAF

This article first appeared on civilsociety.co.uk

Partnerships can be a subtle yet effective way to help develop people and drive change in society.

The approaches that companies and charities take to working with one another has become increasingly varied over the last couple of decades. One of the interesting developments has been focused on how partnerships can be used to manage development, both for individual employees and for a company’s culture.

Business/charity relationships vary from being a funder/fundraising model (eg Lloyds TSB and Save the Children), to those that are focused on shared objectives and mutually beneficial outcomes (eg Barclays, Plan UK and Care International). Throughout this scale of relationships, employee volunteering is often a constant.

Companies release employees during work time as they recognise the value that it brings to the business. Much of this value is delivered through personal and/or team development through working with those charities.

Some of the more sophisticated approaches to employee volunteering involve employees of a business transferring skills and expertise to charity employees. This creates a clear benefit for the charities, but also helps the volunteer to develop their own skills (eg coaching/mentoring/leadership) that will benefit their own development and ultimately the business who employs them. The companies that take this more strategic approach align employees, their skills and their own development needs with appropriate charities. Many of our clients have even used these types of programmes to support culture change within a business.

Many of the above observations will be familiar to you all. But there are two points which I feel are often overlooked:

1. Identifying the ‘game-changers’: Some of the greatest benefits of employees volunteering for charities goes beyond the headline of hours volunteered and funds raised. It is when influential employees within a business recognise that there is a different way to doing business, an approach that can create value within society while still driving profit for shareholders. Serious corporate responsibility managers are big-picture, strategic thinkers, often playing the long game. Key to this is recognising who in the business needs to have their mindsets shifted to enable the business to become a sustainable part of society, rather than a separate entity operating on the borders. Getting those key employees to work with charities, outside of their day-to-day role, can help develop this shift. Seeing this happen is one of the joys of my role at CAF.
   
   
2. Charity volunteering schemes: In a time of reduced incomes, could charities gain the benefits of volunteering in the way that companies currently are? If a business places value on its employees working with a charity, then what about the value that could be created if larger charities created similar relationships with smaller charities that operate in a similar area of focus? This is often done at a trustee level, but what about at an operational level? Not only would skills be developed and transferred, but the opportunity for greater collaboration could be significant; driving individuals’ and organisational development for greater benefit for all.

Some approaches to personal development are up-front and obvious, others more subtle and can be vastly more powerful. Tolstoy is quoted as saying ”Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself”.

We just need to give them a nudge.

By Bethany Cox, Marketing Manager, CAF

A Corporate Foundation receives its income from the profit-making company whose name it bears, but is established as a separate legal entity, usually with a permanent endowment. They often receive staff contributions and/or contributions from company profits on a regular basis - http://philanthropywiki.org.au

Recent research revealed that there are at least 140 corporate foundations in the UK. With the majority of these (96) being established since the 1990s it seems there is a growing trend amongst companies to use a foundation to fulfill part, or in some cases, all of their social responsibilities.

At our recent event on corporate foundations, David Hopkins from the CAF Charity Advisory team highlighted the benefits of a corporate foundation for charities. On average only 25% of charity applications for funding are successful. Corporate foundations by their nature are more transparent about their objectives and the types of grants which will be considered, helping charities to use their time most effectively.

In a time when global charitable giving is in decline it would seem the need for corporate foundations from a funding perspective is greater than ever, but what are the benefits for the corporate who choose to set them up?

Klara Kozlov from the CAF Corporate Advisory team presented the idea that a corporate foundation offered the power of an integrated approach because it could be aligned with wider CSR and business objectives, it could be used as a valuable employee engagement tool and, with the right partners, could be an innovative way to deliver impact.

No ‘one size fits all’

The general consensus at the event was that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to corporate foundations. We were joined by three companies at different stages of their corporate foundation journey, to offer insights and views on their experiences. The analogy used on the day, which I think fittingly describes the companies present were – a new born baby, a questioning teenager and a wise adult.

You can read a short overview of the stage most relevant to you on the links below:

• The new born – Brewin Dolphin, established 2012
• The Teenager – Anglo American Group Foundation, established 2005
• The Grown-up – Zurich Community Trust, established 1973

From the lively discussions going on after the presentations it would appear that the trend in corporate foundations is not going to slow down. The positive impact for an organization in terms of illustrating its commitment to CSR and delivering a CSR programme which engages employees, seems to be a compelling argument for many considering taking the first step to conceiving a foundation within their own company. I for one hope we do see a foundation ‘boom’ as the effects it will hopefully have on increasing sustainable donations to the struggling charity sector can only be positive.

View the full presentation:

By Bethany Cox, Marketing Manager, CAF

Sasha Dabliz and Rosie Richardson-Aitken from Brewin Dolphin shared their journey to launch the Brewin Dolphin Foundation in 2012. With 2,000 employees in offices across the UK Brewin were aware that some charitable activity was going on, but there was no central focus, management or reporting on this activity. So in 2012, Brewin Dolphin’s 250th anniversary, the decision was taken to centralise this activity by creating a foundation as the visible cornerstone of its CSR.

Brewin Dolphin worked with the CAF Advisory team to create a framework and strategy for the foundation, and opted not to set up a stand alone registered charity but to use the CAF Company Account to manage the foundation’s grants.

The key aims of the foundation are:

• To raise more money for charity
• To engage all staff
• To demonstrate the values of Brewin Dolphin at a more local level
• To increase charitable activity which has a social benefit
• To ensure an enduring legacy
• To enhance the business’ reputation

Brewin Dolphin wanted to create a foundation for staff by staff. In addition to donations of corporate money, the foundation is funded through its CAF Give As You Earn scheme. All grant recipients are nominated by employees and it has created a charity ambassador network across its offices to help promote the foundation and encourage involvement to allocate donations at a local level.

Although it is too soon to really measure the impact of Brewin Dolphin’s Foundation, there has been a 50% increase in the number of employees donating through the CAF Give As You Earn scheme since the foundation launched.

View the presentation by Brewin Dolphin

Read our related blogs:

• The role of a corporate foundation in a responsible business
• The Teenager - Anglo American Group Foundation, established 2005
• The Grown-up – Zurich Community Trust, established 1973

Find out more about how CAF helps businesses develop CSR programmes on our website.

By Bethany Cox, Marketing Manager, CAF

Charlotte Edgeworth from The Anglo American Group Foundation shared her experiences of managing a foundation which has been running for eight years – one which is ‘in its questioning teenage years’.

Anglo American is a global mining company operating in 45 countries with over 100,000 employees, only 350 of whom are based at its head office in the UK. The foundation is a stand-alone registered charity established in 2005 to bring structure and good governance to the informal and opaque charitable donation process which was in place previously.

The foundation’s budget comes directly from the company and is used to fund projects in any country where the company has a presence. Due to the nature of the industry Anglo American operates in and the social and environmental impact it has, some projects are part of ‘business as normal’. The projects the foundation supports are therefore kept very separate and are seen more as ‘the icing on the top’. To put this in perspective, the business spent £154million in total on CSR projects, just £3million of which was spent by the foundation.

The foundation operates across geographical locations and with a diverse range of programmes. Now in its teenage years the foundation has developed from the new born state but is still operating quite short term. In typical teenage style it is yet to create its five year plan, but has started to create longer, more meaningful partnerships which go beyond grant making. In the near future the Anglo American Foundation is working with the HR team to create opportunities to develop employee skills through volunteering. It also plans to invite employees from local areas with more in-depth knowledge of social needs, to be part of a committee to help with the decision making process and to help build lasting and meaningful relationships with charity beneficiaries.

View the presentation by Anglo American Group Foundation

Read our related blogs:

• The role of a corporate foundation in a responsible business
• The new born – Brewin Dolphin, established 2012
• The Grown-up – Zurich Community Trust, established 1973

Find out more about how CAF helps businesses develop CSR programmes on our website.

By Daniel Knight, Company Relations Manager, CAF 

“You feel like you become a better person by helping others” – Tyler, aged 11

At CAF we never stop seeking to understand what demographics are giving and giving behaviours. We previously released our research Mind The Gap which shows a divide between generations and their giving habits – with ‘Baby Boomers’ (those born between 1945-1966) giving far more than Generations X and Y (those born from1965-1999),  and with over 50% of charitable donations now being made by people over the age of 60.

We have taken this a step further and are launching an inquiry into giving, the first strand of which looks at children and how they can grow up giving. Our report Growing Up Giving surveyed 1000 junior and secondary school children and has provided some really interesting insight into the charitable outlook of the next generation. Two particular points of interest to us here at Corporate Communities are:

• 63% of children agree that all businesses should give money to charity
• 33% of children would like to work for a charity

So what does this mean for your business?

Building your sustainable brand loyalty
It is important to remember that these young people are not only the next generation of givers, but they are the consumers of the future. It is encouraging that these young people are clearly attuned to corporate responsibility, and this could well be a result of programmes which positively engage young people. Two examples include:

• Sky Sports Living 4 Sport

• Greggs Breakfast Club

Considering these consumers of the future when you are communicating your social and charitable activity could go a long way to building brand loyalty for the future.

Business talent of the future
Potentially more interesting however is the second point. In the world of corporate social responsibility we often refer to how a well run and effective programme can help to recruit and retain talent. If a young person is actively considering working for a charity when they are old enough then why not a business with a strong sense of community investment or an ethical focus? As a generation that is growing up with the recession and who regularly hear about bankers bonuses and dodged taxes, will the talent of the future be more inclined to choose an ethical organisation when considering their career path? It would seem that if you want to attract the best talent in the future, you should be considering how you communicate to them now.

“If there weren’t charities, the world would be a worse place”

–Gemma, aged 11

Find out more

• Visit the Growing Giving campaign site to find out more about the report, campaign and inquiry.
• Continue the discussion in our LinkedIn group - CAF Corporate Communities

By Derek Ray-Hill, Senior Company Relations Manager, CAF

Three simple steps to make your CR programme global

During our recent seminar on Global Giving Trends at the London Stock Exchange, we shared insights from the World Giving Index to help our corporate clients identify challenges, opportunities and solutions to developing a global CR strategy and programme. We advised companies to use a step-by step approach to global CR.

• Give more, give smarter, give longer
  Companies should ensure they are as strategic, process-driven and tenacious in choosing charity partners as they are  throughout their core business activity. It’s ironic that the world’s most successful organisations who lead their sector  will abandon their own highly-developed processes when choosing charity partners. Charity partnerships at their best  should be sustainable, relevant and add value to all parties, including your own organisation.

• ‘Glocalise’
  It is important to deliver programmes which have global consistency while allowing for local flexibility. This flexibility has both strategic and tactical advantages. Strategically, as demonstrated in the World Giving Index , national cultures around giving and charity vary significantly, even between countries which are similar in other ways. For instance, there are any number of companies who work successfully across Europe delivering the same products and services in different places. Yet according to the Index, Germany ranks 34th, the UK 8th and Belgium 54th for good charitable behaviour. So it may be a challenge to develop a single CR programme that  will engage employees across multiple countries. A CR programme which can adapt to these very different cultural dynamics is likely to have more success.

• Open your business for business 
  We suggest  all corporations should bring every aspect of corporate responsibility into their core business. And we really do mean everything. If your profits are linked to selling global investment services then align your programmes to what makes your organisation uniquely competitive in this space. For instance, one of our clients, the Vodafone Foundation takes a very pragmatic approach to disaster relief. It is in the 10th year of its partnership with Telecoms Sans Frontiers which focuses on building communications infrastructure in regions which have been affected by disaster. Its Instant Network programme enables a new mobile network within 48 hours in disaster zones. This activity is perfectly aligned to Vodafone’s commercial activity, its global brand and its market positioning as the most reliable network. This genuinely philanthropic activity helps areas affected by disaster and builds Vodafone’s reputation.  

Where do you start?

Small CR teams who have responsibility for corporate citizenship often stall at concept stage, feeling unable to progress with and achieve a global roll-out given their resources. In our experience, using a ‘train-the-trainer’ model and beginning with a smaller roll-out in a few countries is the most achievable plan. As soon as you have momentum outside your central location, you will find that word spreads very quickly and employees in other countries are asking to get involved. Now the dynamic has shifted, and with your tried and tested toolkits from the smaller roll-out, it will be easier to get them to follow your ‘glocal’ strategy.

CAF’s Advisory and Consultancy service can help companies with their international CSR strategy to help enhance their reputation globally. For more details visit our website.

By Charlotte Davis, Companies Relations Manager, CAF

CAF’s Advisory and Consultancy service can help companies with their international CSR strategy to help enhance their reputation globally. For more details visit our website.

Responsible supply chains don’t just avoid scandals; they promote fairness for producers and customers.

The news has been dominated by stories of the horse meat scandal and has shocked those who were under the belief that, while tucking in to the traditional beef you would expect to find in a lasagne, they were in fact chomping on a piece of pony. However, the issue here is not the sensitivities involved around eating horse meat, it’s about the irresponsible behaviour of those companies who have been caught up in the scandal and do not have a thorough oversight of their own supply chains. This is unacceptable and is not only harmful to the unsuspecting customers who buy such products, but can also have consequences for communities throughout the world who supply products and commodities to large multi-national companies.

This is not the first time household brands who we know and trust have been exposed as having very little idea about where the products they sell to us actually came from. Over the years there have been numerous exposés of companies who have apparently been unaware of the true providence of their products and the labour used to produce them. From fashion retailers accused of using child labour and sweatshop conditions to produce their garments,  to technology companies facing issues of suicide amongst employees working within their supply chains. It is an issue for a number of sectors, and something that in today’s globalised world they must begin to get a better handle on.

Budget vs British

In addition, the operations of supply chains themselves seem confusing and make little sense. For example, why does the supply chain for budget British meat go through France, Cyprus, Holland and Romania before the food ends up on our plates?  Some retailers shout loudly about providing ‘local’ and ‘British’ meat from ‘approved suppliers’ as part of their marketing campaigns. However buying meat marked as ‘British’ can be seen as a luxury and sometimes comes with a higher price tag. If the word ‘budget’ is applied it seems any sense of whether the product is what is says it is and where it was produced seems to go out the window.

Endorsing the right suppliers

When I buy food I want to know where it came from, how it was produced, how were the people who produced it treated? In the past few years we have seen an increasing number of companies keen to endorse a variety of excellent organisations who champion responsible supply chains including Red Tractor, Fair Trade, the Marine Stewardship Council and the Rainforest Alliance. These are steps in the right directions to ensure that producers at the bottom of the supply chain get a fair deal as well as reassurance for the public who buy the products, but may be viewed as a small token in light of the recent scandal.

Retailers and food manufacturers have a long way to go to restore the public’s trust and must take action and accept accountability.

Perhaps it is time that they look to the likes of Nike and BP which following very public scandals, took responsibility and used CSR to repair at least some of the damage. 

Related articles:

Marketing Week: Oxfam slams food brands for poor ethical performance

Guardian - Sustainable Business: Oxfam report shows multinational companies failing on CSR goals