Partnerships: an irrelevancy…or worse, a distraction?

Partner for the year

Centrica is supporting its charity of the year, the Meningitis Trust, by helping to promote an awareness initiative that highlights steps to try and avoid the virus. British Gas engineers across the country supported the campaign by leaving a symptoms card with every customer they visited during a special campaign focus week. Lloyds TSB is aiming to raise £750,000 to support its annual charity Help the Hospices, encouraging customers to buy a sunflower pin to raise money for hospice care. All branches will carry messages on cash point machines during the three month campaign, launched on May 22. Contact Andrew McCallum, Centrica, on 01753 494082(http://www.centrica.co.uk); Alex Tudge, Lloyds TSB, on 020 7356 1497 (http://www.lloydstsb.co.uk)

Seen and heard

BT is working with the UK Youth Parliament to research a collection of case studies illustrating the benefits of listening to children and young people, published on July 24. Seen and heard includes examples of young people influencing business, government, community groups and local health and transport services, and forms part of BT’s Am I Listening? campaign, which has so far raised £1.2m for ChildLine. Contact Beth Courtier, BT, on 02380 823 340 (http://www.bt.com/listening)

Seeing is believing

Tesco is pledging to support homelessness centres with financial contributions, assistance with a pilot food-redistribution programme, and work placements for homeless people. Announced on May 2, the commitments were inspired by a personal trip by five company directors to homeless centres, organised through the Business in the company charity Community Seeing is believing initiative to raise awareness across the organisation on the issue of homelessness. Contact Fiona Mason, Tesco, on 01992 632222 (http://www.tesco.co.uk)

Big ticks all round

National Grid Transco,B&Q, and Standard Chartered are among the companies shortlisted for the Business in the Community Excellence Awards, announced on June 12. All shortlisted companies receive a Big Tick, a simpleway for businesses to demonstrate their measurable impact on society and regarded as a quality benchmark that endorses performance in the field of corporate responsibility. The winners of each category will be revealed on July 10. Contact Catherine Sermon, BITC, on 0870 600 2482 (http://www.bitc.org.uk)

in brief

NatWest is supporting Marie Curie Cancer Care for the second year running, it was announced on March 26, in a project designed to raise awareness of skin cancer in the UK. The Sun Safety- know your boundaries campaign will once again include the bank’s sponsorship of the NatWest Series and the NatWest Challenge cricket tournaments. Contact Lee Bailey, NatWest, on 020 7427 9037(http://www.natwest.co.uk)

Partnerships between Tesco and Cancer Research UK, and Unilever and the Tate Modern, took prizes at the Hollis sponsorship awards 2003, announced on April 1 (see table below). Contact Rosemary Sarginson, Hollis, on 020 8977 7711 (http://www.hollis-pr.com)

Spar reached its fundraising target of £1m for Macmillan Cancer Relief during their three-year partnership, which ended in April. The company still aims to raise a record £150,000 for the charity through the 2003 World’s biggest coffee morning. Contact Sunita Sharma, Macmillan, on 020 7840 7811 (http://www.macmillan.org.uk)

Comment

Some in the burgeoning worlds of corporate responsibility and sustainable development are more than a little dismissive of community involvement. “Just charity”, they say, “Totally dwarfed by the impact of the business.” For them, our regular round-up of contributions made, employee fundraising achieved and charities of the year named is at best a distraction. And yet, far from being eclipsed, there’s life in the old dog yet. The latest Global Reporting Initiative included “donations to community, civil society and other groups” as a core indicator (though not, it has to be said, without an initial wobble and a lot of last minute lobbying). Companies such as the French FMCG firm, Danone, are now reporting contributions for the first time. So much for Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism.

Why this continuing vitality? In part, it’s because the ‘business case’ really does exist, usually around meeting expectations among key audiences, such as employees and those affecting ‘licence to operate’. Partly, it’s because CCI can really work for the community: it’s flexible, has fewer strings than government money, and forms a key part of maintaining pluralism in democratic civil society.

But mainly it’s because the best corporate responsibility is founded on a values-based approach: who are we as a company, what do we believe and how should we behave?

Corporate values draw from society’s enduring values, and all the great religions contain precepts of choosing freely to make a personal contribution, whether called Charity, Zakah or Tzedakah. in short, individuals doing the right thing because it IS the right thing, rather than because they’ve got a ‘business case’ incentive.

In fact, if we are to have a sustainable future on this planet, we urgently need companies to behave more like individuals – watching out for their neighbours, caring for the less fortunate, and worrying about the legacy left to their grandchildren. Far from being irrelevant, community contributions have a lot to teach the management of ‘mainstream’ corporate responsibility.