Corporate
social responsibility is a phrase that, even as you let the
words stumble clumsily off your tongue, feels peculiar. The
corporate world is what it is: hard-nosed, high-pressured
and profit-driven. This is entirely at odds, surely, with
the notion of social responsibility, of giving something back
to the community, of engagement, interaction and inclusion.
Apparently not; the UK’s major corporates have embraced
the concept and charities have leapt at the chance to work
more closely with the private sector. The more cynical may
believe businesses employ a CSR strategy because it provides
a relatively cheap and extremely reliable marketing tool,
but that’s not the whole story. Many third sector organisations
are financially stabilised by the hefty contributions of businesses
through these partnerships, and they also offer reciprocal
marketing opportunities.
Yet despite these benefits, the culture of corporate partnering
is already under fire. Body Shop founder Anita Roddick for
one has said the CSR movement is compromising ethical business
practice. “I don’t think corporate social responsibility
is working,” she said earlier this year. “I think
it’s been taken over by the big management houses, marketing
houses, been taken over by the big groups. It’s a huge
money building operation now.”
Within the third sector, Kids Company chief executive Camila
Batmanghelidjh has been vociferous in her attacks on what
she calls “poisonous CSR”. She believes charities
are failing to stand up for themselves, particularly where
significant funding agreements are involved, and allowing
corporate partners to walk over their work.
“There is a real power imbalance in some of this. The
charity then doesn’t engage in a partnership, it’s
subjected to it,” she says. “The risk is that
you’re being bullied. The person who gives away their
money is altering the shape of charity delivery.”
Kids Company has worked with numerous business partners since
its creation in 1996. Indeed, the charity relies on funding
from the private sector, but despite forming extremely positive
links with its current partners, Batmanghelidjh says the charity
has learned the hard way.
In the past former partners have actually conducted wholesale
economic evaluation of the charity without telling the board
or management team what they were doing, and moreover without
understanding exactly how the charity works. Though they were
providing funding for the organisation, she claims, they did
not understand why this would not be in the charity’s
best interest.
Most of all she fears corporate involvement in financial strategy
as part of a CSR rogramme, particularly goal-setting, will
lead to mission drift. For Kids Company, accepting their former
partners’ fiscal recommendations could have meant the
charity accepting children with fewer problems or less chaotic
lives, in order to meet tough indicators of success imposed
by the business sector.
Batmanghelidjh also criticises the culture of incorporating
volunteering into CSR. The trend for pushing thousands of
people through single day volunteering programmes is, for
her, the most damaging aspect. “They have dictated the
whole nature of the volunteering experience,” she warns.
“It doesn’t help us and it doesn’t help
them.”
So can these partnerships, rooted in the desire for businesses
to prove their CSR credentials, ever be useful to charities?
Yes, but a culture change is in order. Charities should not
feel pressured to accept whatever support they are offered,
whether it is useful or not. “The British culture has
got to understand that charities are not the poor relative
upon whom you bestow your leftovers. They are partners in
stabilising the social fabric of this country,” Batmanghelidjh
says.
Standing up to corporates
Standing up for oneself in the face of major funders is
a tough ask, which is why the Vodafone UK Foundation, for
example, provides a go-between, facilitating the relationship
between Vodafone and its third sector partners. Sharah Shillito,
head of the Foundation, recognises the problems faced by
charities like Kids Company in the first years of partnering.
“I think it’s actually quite a challenge if
it’s a funding relationship. However hard you try,
the assumption on the part of the charity is that ‘we’re
taking money from them, therefore we have to take everything
from them’,” she says. “And if you have
got people who are in a day job in the corporate world,
they do go in quite heavy.”
The only way a charity can protect itself from the firm
hand of the corporate is to say no, and to tell the business
exactly what it wants from them. “The charity has
to make it clear that it is the expert in its sector,”
she says. “Say ‘we’re up for change and
we’re up for listening, it doesn’t mean we’re
going to do what you say’.”
Shillito is the conduit for these discussions, and through
her Vodafone is now working with Shelter, the Samaritans
and YouthNet. She says the key to a successful CSR relationship
is ensuring the charity is getting exactly what it wants
out of the relationship, even if that means cutting volunteering
programmes or reducing strategic input from businesses.
“I’ve never come across anybody who’s
said ‘how ungrateful!’ They have said they’re
really grateful, because they don’t want to waste
our time,” she says.
Cause and effect
Cause-related marketing is a far more difficult CSR partnership
to manage. Even Shillito admits the rules about speaking
up and staking your claim do not apply, with firm targets
to be met and end-year results to be proven.
Breakthrough Breast Cancer works with retail giant Marks
& Spencer on such a programme. Adam Colling, head of
corporate fundraising at the charity, says the partnership
has been a success. The figures certainly speak for themselves;
£6.5 million has been raised for breast cancer research
since 2001 through the relationship. Breakthrough Breast
Cancer is an old hand at managing corporates, and already
works with Avon Cosmetics, GHD, Nissan and Aviva, and intends
to target new companies as part of its three-year strategy
for growth.
Colling says two things guide Breakthrough Breast Cancer’s
marketing partnerships: trust and clearly defined objectives.
He says having measurable objectives and agreed targets
means that the charity is always an equal partner, never
left behind by the corporate.
“Trust is the core value of our partnership which
is progressed through honest, open dialogue, therefore brand
control or misrepresentation is never a concern. Clear guidelines
are established from the outset and a mutual approval process
is in place for product, point of sale and all related communications.
This ensures that Breakthrough’s brand is always integrated
in the most appropriate way,” Colling concludes.
Employee involvement
Few direct CSR partnerships are based on customer-facing
fundraising and marketing drives – most concern the
spare time and cash of employees, not consumers. In this
case, the business actually has a better understanding of
what opportunities and campaigns will appeal to their staff.
The British Red Cross has been chosen as charity of the
year for Tesco. Andrew Ball, project manager at the Red
Cross, says the experience had been extremely positive so
far, with the focus of the partnership on staff fundraising.
Ball admitts that some of the charity’s ideas for
the partnership were overturned by Tesco, but he believes
such decisions improved the relationship, and it is not
a case of the big foot of Tesco stamping on the face of
the charity.
“The things that have been rejected have been because
[Tesco] has tried them before and they don’t work.
The charity of the year is predominantly based around staff.
They know what’s going to work with their staff,”
Ball says. “They have been doing this for 20 years.
From their side of it, it’s a fairly slick operation.”
Moreover, the partnership is a two-way process. As Tesco
staff help to raise money for the charity, the British Red
Cross is in turn helping Tesco to develop a community volunteering
programme through which staff are given time off from their
regular jobs to volunteer for a host of charities. This
seems to be an example of a CSR partnership working correctly.
To have more relationships working in this way, there is
an argument that CSR partnering should be regulated. Kids
Company’s Batmanghelidjh says umbrella groups including
NCVO and Acevo should be looking at developing safeguards
for charities stepping foot into business with the corporate
beasts that control our economy. Exactly what shape these
safeguards would take is not clear, nor easy to fathom.
Margaret Hodge is the government’s appointed minister
for CSR, but to date little has been heard from her in this
capacity. Perhaps in its rush to support the independence
of the third sector, the government should focus too on
the power of the corporates working with the sector. With
support, charities can learn when to say no and mutually
beneficial relationships like that between Tesco and the
British Red Cross can become the norm.
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