Companies moving beyond ad hoc philanthropic acts

Companies looking to implement not-for-profit initiatives for the betterment of the community are slowly going beyond just ad hoc philanthropic acts.

They are instead committing themselves to various social and environmental causes with sustained, long-term initiatives under their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes.

Aun Koh, the acting head for corporate community investment for the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre (NVPC), said that corporate donations have always been important for charities, but more and more, visionary corporate leaders are looking to invest in more meaningful and sustainable ways of involving their people in giving back to the communities around them, and they have been offering their resources and expertise.

Two reasons explain the emergence of this trend: Firstly, companies are fast acknowledging the sound economics of deep community participation, and so are tailoring their CSR activities to meet business objectives.

Investors and business clients now scrutinise corporations' CSR portfolios, and expect to see a measure of contribution back to society, thus reinforcing the notion that good CSR is indeed good business.

Secondly, CSR programmes can also achieve intangible results; it can burnish a company's image and appeal to customers and to its employees, say observers The Business Times spoke to.

For example, employees of accounting firm Deloitte spend time at NorthLight Secondary School, where they impart basic career skills to the school's academically weak students. This work outside the office has translated into higher staff satisfaction at the firm and, by extension, better work performance.

Max Loh, EY's ASEAN and Singapore managing partner, said: "The ways companies conduct their corporate responsibility programmes reflect the organisation's values, attracting stakeholders and investors who share similar beliefs. CSR programmes also provide opportunities for employee engagement."

Not all companies view their corporate-citizenship efforts through a purely monetary lens. There is room for altruism.

Accenture's "Skills to Succeed" programme, for example, aims to equip 700,000 people with career and business-building skills by next year. This drive was borne out of the desire to help disadvantaged communities escape dire poverty.

Some companies even take responsibility for the negative social and environmental impact their businesses have created.

At StarHub, for example, CSR entails helping to strengthen social cohesion in disadvantaged families, on the grounds that the telecommunications company may have played an indirect role in eroding ties among family members with its mobile phone subscription packages.

One way corporations go about choosing their CSR specialisations is to identify specific problems that they are most passionate about, and which would bring the greatest potential benefit to society if properly tackled.

This was how DBS Bank came to support social-entrepreneurship efforts in its operating markets, for it saw such companies as being pivotal in addressing the problems created by Asia's turbocharged, but unsustainable growth rates.

Another way for companies to find their niche CSR area would be to consider which causes can benefit most from the resources and expertise it can provide.

Leading multinational technology giant IBM pairs its top talents with city leaders to provide insights and recommendations in planning more efficient urban spaces through its "Smart City Challenge" programme.

Logistics company UPS utilises its supply-chain management expertise to provide humanitarian assistance, one of its many CSR causes. The company was most recently involved in the Typhoon Haiyan relief efforts, managing and coordinating the delivery of supplies to the devastated parts of the Philippines.

Some companies with ground-up, employee-led volunteer initiatives have also achieved much in CSR. PriceWaterhouseCoopers, for example, actively supports its employees who organise events on their own by giving them time off and funds to implement these ideas; this dovetails with the company's overarching CSR theme, complementing the overseas and local community projects that it frequently undertakes.

One principle consideration companies make before diving into CSR activities is to align business objectives with social investments to ensure that maximum value is generated for both the company and the community.

Christopher Ang, the executive director for the Singapore Compact for corporate social responsibility, said: "Companies should focus their CSR activities in areas that not only allow them to address social needs with their company's expertise, but also align with their business objectives and their stakeholders' preferences.

"This makes sense because these companies do want to extract synergistic value out of their budget and resources available for CSR activities."

Even as more companies keep their fingers on the community's pulse, there are many other ways to enhance the spirit of giving. The NVPC suggested, for example, having more skills-based volunteering initiatives, enhancing private-public CSR partnerships and pairing more senior-level board members with non-profit groups.

Widespread adoption of sustainability reporting will also keep the trend chugging along, by enabling companies to measure the social, economic and environmental impact and their contributions.

CSR efforts by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are lagging behind those of their multinational counterparts, although more such firms have stepped up lately to support causes.

This article was published on April 19 in The Business Times.

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