National Correspondent, The New York Times (Moderator)
Key Takeaways:
While economic circumstances are forcing changes in the approach to corporate philanthropy, many leaders are seeking new opportunities to find alliances with nonprofit organizations – collaboratively developing symbiotic goals to address social problems.
The definition of corporate philanthropy has changed. The most enlightened companies embrace the concept of moving beyond check writing and embedding philanthropy into what the company stands for. The public cares about whether or not the company is a good corporate citizen – and they impute good and bad into every company they come in contact with.
Companies overestimate what they can do in a year, but underestimate what they can do in 10 years. Long-term planning and goal-setting can enhance the impact of your community investments. There are four key ingredients a company needs to sustain long-term authenticity: trust, alignment, contribution, transparency.
President and CEO, The Independent Sector (Moderator)
Key Takeaways:
Though corporate and individual giving is down, there is a substantial increase in the demand for social services. Corporations should and can utilize the resources they have to maximize impact. This requires a commitment to understanding the bigger issues that need to be solved, harnessing the resources within the communities you want to impact, evaluating your impact, and continuing to innovate your giving practice.
Sound business plans and execution are necessary for administering your giving program so that they are congruent to the operating practices of your company’s core businesses. Evaluation and measurement ensure that you are making the impact and incremental changes you want to achieve with your giving programs.
Engaging employees is critical to addressing the pressing community needs, especially at this time. All three companies have strengthened their matching gifts programs and promoted or expanded their employee volunteer programs.
President, Center for Effective Philanthropy (Moderator)
Key Takeaways:
There is great interest and practice of collaborating with private funders and NGOs. However, many funders have faced challenges in these partnerships, including a lack of focus in the funding group and difficulty in sharing the credit for their involvement.
By not collaborating, both funders and nonprofits face additional costs and redundancies in fundraising and processing multiple transactions.
An example of fruitful funder collaboration is the Citizen Schools and the Growth Capital Aggregation pilot lead by the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation (EMCF) in partnership with Bank of America.
One of the cornerstones of a corporate giving officer’s success in the role is the commitment to deliver a robust business case for every idea that is presented. Every new program idea that Evan shares with Barry is accompanied by a financial model, impact assessment, cost-benefit analysis, and a clear connection to the larger priorities of the business.
CEOs are not looking for one-off programs but truly integrated programs. To gain buy-in across the company, a giving officer should sell proposed initiatives executive-by-executive across the firm. When speaking to these internal business leaders, giving professionals need to make it clear that they understand the fundamental business issues and implications of their proposals.
Corporate giving professionals need the ability to operate like any other business leader in the company. Evan refers to this as “a license to operate,” allowing him to make decisions and talk directly with key internal stakeholders to build the needed consensus across the firm for new programs and projects.
The economic downturn that began for some industries in the summer of 2007 did not discriminate in 2008, with 68% of companies that responded to the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy’s annual philanthropy survey showing a decline in corporate profits year-over-year.
Against this challenging economic backdrop, 53% of surveyed companies nonetheless increased their giving from 2007 to 2008 (off only slightly from the 56% that increased giving from 2006 to 2007). Within this group, 27% of companies raised their year-over-year giving by an impressive 10% or more, recognizing the long-run importance of supporting their community partners.
Among the 53% of companies that gave more in 2008, non-cash giving increased the most— surging by nearly 35%.
CEO, World Affairs Council, CEO, Global Philanthropy Forum (Moderator)
Key Takeaways:
Bringing business discipline to corporate philanthropy means not only utilizing corporate practices, but also defining measures of success and areas of influence of giving programs.
The creation and execution of a strategic plan should include executive involvement, metrics that are comparable to the company’s performance measures, and long-term planning with short-term outcomes.
Measurement and outcomes should be integrated with the grant giving process with metrics and annual reviews set at the beginning. With larger programs, specific evaluation standards and methods should be implemented; smaller grants should have regular review times as well.
When utilizing non-cash contributions, it is important to have a clear goal and business proposition for your programs. The focus should be on the social and business benefits to the program, and not on who gets the credit.
Choosing the right partners is critical to the success of noncash programs; they can support your giving program with research, project logistics, and program development. Employees within your corporations often have the relationships to bring the right partners to the table, and they can also facilitate cooperation and agreements among internal and external stakeholders.
Examples of non-cash contributions is American Express’ building of nonprofit capacity through leadership development training; Cisco’s development of new technology systems for nonprofits; and Eli Lilly & Company’s work to address multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).
