Strategic and effective Corporate Social Responsibility goes beyond cash donations and clever marketing. The potential synergy between the corporate and development worlds is not leveraged enough when it comes to engaging the broader community in delivering development assistance.
Significant opportunities to be socially responsible lie in leveraging existing knowledge and experience in the sector of international aid and development. The development of CSR in this context pushes the whole concept beyond its philanthropic roots. The benefit of building a long lasting partnership between a corporate and development organisation could include:
Two-way learning – A significant benefit of corporate entities working with development organisations is the opportunity for two-way learning. Employees would be encouraged to volunteer and engage with development projects where there was a skills match. For example, a commercial banker working with communities to implement microfinance. The development organisation would benefit from a skilled volunteer with a corporate background (experience and skills developed in a corporate environment are sometimes missing in the development sector). Employees/volunteers would come away with a profound learning experience, this not only provides a sense of job fulfilment but also builds understanding and awareness around the complexity of the issues facing the world’s poorest communities, something money can’t buy. Mutually beneficial CSR has the potential to build lasting partnerships and relationships throughout the world and significantly contribute to reducing poverty.
Integration with existing projects – One of the biggest challenges to businesses implementing successful poverty alleviation initiatives is underestimating the amount of time and energy needed to build necessary relationships and partnerships. A successful and sustainable development initiative often takes years to build necessary rapport and trust with local communities and governments, time that a corporate entity doesn’t have, but an NGO does. Having a CSR project that piggybacks on an initiative run by an existing stakeholder reduces the risk of failure and increases the sustainability and success of projects. This is just as much about recognising comparative advantage as it is about successful CSR. Development organisations spend years implementing projects, why not leverage this experience? Companies have a highly skilled workforce at their fingertips whose experience and skills is a fantastic resource for NGOs, why not leverage this?
Examples
ANZ and AVI – Asia Pacific Partnership
On the 25 June Australian Volunteers International and ANZ announced their new partnership program for ANZ’s staff volunteer program in the Asia Pacific region. ANZ Group Managing Director Human Resources, Susie Babani outlined:
“Our business strategy is to become a super regional bank based on our promise to live in and understand our customer’s world. One way that we are building this understanding is through our volunteering program and our partnership with AVI,”
This partnership builds on both organisations strengths to deliver international aid in a effective and progressive way. It also is a CSR program with depth that demonstrates ANZ’s commitment to communities it works with on a day to day basis.
This kind of partnership is exciting to see and will be interesting to watch how it develops.
PACE
PACE – or Participation and Community Engagement is a CSR initiative between Macquarie University and Australian Volunteers International (AVI). Although, this could be viewed as outside the realms of ‘corporate’, it is fair to say many universities these days are very much businesses focused on increasing profit.
Macquarie University has made volunteering compulsory for every student. To achieve this Macquarie has teamed up with AVI, one of Australia’s leading and well respected development organisations. Without a doubt this is an ambitious policy but a progressive one as well. The beauty of this partnership is that it draws on existing knowledge and networks about volunteering and avoids unnecessarily reinventing the wheel. Macquarie University has the opportunity to provide students with substantial volunteer experience, while AVI can further develop their projects with access to students, many of whom are post graduate with significant skills to offer.
The opportunities are endless, challenging but endless
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