Business Giving To Be Cut By A Third
Business donations to good causes are expected to be down by over a third - around £500million - as a result of the economics downturn according to a new poll published today.
The survey of 450 senior business leaders in the UK, commissioned by The Social Investment Consultancy and carried out by YouGovStone, found that corporate giving is expected to drop by 34% this year, with 60% of respondents expecting their organisation to cut its charity budget.
British business gives an estimated £1.4blln a year in revenue and support each year to good causes. A 34% cut amounts to a loss of almost £500m to the voluntary sector.
According to the survey, 83% of respondents believed that reducing corporate giving is a necessity in times like these and in addition to cutting hte total amount of support, almost 50% of respondents expected to cut the number fo good causes they support this year.
More optimistically 80% of respondents agreed that companies whose budgets are squeezed should look for other ways of helping the community such as in kind gifts or staff volunteering. And 79% agreed that being a socially responsible business can create a competitive advantage.
Jake Hayman, CEO of The Social Investment Consultancy (TSIC), who commissioned the research said:
“In these cash strapped times, businesses clearly cannot afford to sustain their current levels of charitable donations. These cutbacks will either expose corporations as fair-weather donors, or it could mean they apply themselves to develop more innovative ways of supporting communities. The truth is there are plenty of things companies can do to maintain strong partnerships with good causes that can build rather than hit the bottom line.”
Building on this research, The Social Investment Consultancy today published a five-point plan to help companies act responsibly and support good causes during a recession.
The Social Investment Consultancy: Top Tips For Credit Crunch Giving
1. Choose The Right Cause: You can’t afford to give cash away at the same levels as before, so you need to pick wisely. Any partnership has to be aligned with your stakeholders and connected to your core business.
2. Build Task Forces. Most CSR volunteering is a waste. Employees don’t use their volunteering days because they don’t know what to do with them. Skills-based volunteering - organised through bespoke task forces - is largely overlooked but staff in corporations can help attack problems and inefficiencies in charities through consultation, training and participation.
3. Give Products In-Kind. The maths of this are very simple: A computer company gives a children’s charity £10,000. That charity spends the money on ten new £1,000 laptops for their staff. If however, the computer company gives 10 laptops direct to the charity, it’s a gift still worth £10,000, but it only costs the computer company £5,000 - the manufacturing and packaging costs for the laptops.
4. Do More Pro-Bono. This can be a highly effective way of re-energising staff and can be easily organise to minimise disruption on your cose business. Companies should also connect wtih a range of organisations and look beyond charities to social enterprises and business start ups who will benefit from ongoing pro-bono advice, and benefit the community in return. Treat them as thought they were paying clients and see how much more your staff like coming to work.
5. Match costs. Many charities fail to fundraise effectively becuase they don’t want to shell out thousands on a central venue and refreshments for an event, but don’t realise that the function rooms help by their corporate partners cost the business next to nothing to staff for an evening and provide ideal venues. The transport of food, clothing and medicine worldwide can be made both more effective and mroe efficient by charities in those sectors leveraging businesses’ supply chains - such as the Red Cross and Unilever.
For more information on strategies for successful engagement and corporate community activity please go to www.tsiconsultancy.com
Ends.
For more press information please contact:
Jim Godfrey: GallieGodfrey Communications
jim@galliegodfrey.com; 07876 386 521
Jake Hayman, The Social Investment Consultancy
07771 590 893, Jake@tsiconsultancy.com
