California Business - Volume 3, Issue 1 - Northern California - 20

GIVING
BACK

LENDING A

HAND
How to get the most out of your corporate giving

early every company with the
means to do so engages in some
form of volunteerism, charitable giving or other form of
philanthropy. Employees seek out community-oriented companies on the job market
and customers expect local businesses to
give back.
In short, if you're not giving back,
you're sticking out, and not in a good way.
But with countless community organizations needing financial support and
volunteer hours, each business leader has
to answer the question, "Where can our
resources make the biggest difference?"
To find the answer, you have to look
inward before you extend a helping hand
outward.

Creating a strategy
John Urban, a senior partner with The
Philanthropic Initiative, a Boston-based
philanthropy advisory organization, says
volunteerism and charitable giving have
become such a big part of doing business
that it's virtually impossible to perform
on a reactive basis. You must be proactive,
and that means building a philanthropic
strategy.
"Your goal should be to align your philanthropic strategy with your business strategy," Urban says. "The first step is to take
a look at all of your stakeholders - your
vendors, your employees, your customers,

20 * California Business

your stockholders - and how they influence your business, which will help you
define what causes you want to support.
Look at your capabilities as a business, and
the ways those capabilities can be utilized
to have an impact. You want your people,
your goals and your giving to be aligned."
Often, businesses don't take that step,
opting instead to write checks as charities
and organizations solicit donations. The
danger in that approach is the tendency to
lose clarity on how much money you're giving and where it's going for what purpose.
"In our industry, we call it 'checkbook
giving,'" Urban says. "Someone shows up
asking for a donation, and you write them
a check. It amounts to giving without a
strategic framework, and it can lead to all
kinds of problems. You don't always know
who is giving what to whom."
Checkbook giving can allow companies
to become lax in their charitable-giving
policies, ignoring the basic responsibility
of performing due diligence on charities and organizations before committing
resources to them. That approach can
expose your business to poorly run charities, and even scams. It can also make it
difficult to say no.
Although saying no seems in opposition to the spirit of charitable giving, it's a
necessary part of any giving strategy, as you
simply can't help every organization that
wants help.

"It can be difficult to say no to a request," Urban says. "But that's where your
strategy comes in. If you have outlined
your philanthropic strategy, then giving
becomes more about aligning with the
strategic direction of the company. You
have firm reasoning for why you'll donate
resources to one organization but not to
another. And that makes it much easier
on the question of whether to accept or
decline a request."
Using your strengths
There's nothing wrong with giving money
to a charitable cause. Few, if any, charities
would turn down a monetary donation.
But sometimes, money isn't the only way
you can help, and it might not even be the
most effective way to help.
Before you cut a check, look at what
other assets you can offer to a charity
or community organization. You might
have items or services at your fingertips
that could make a huge difference for a
worthy cause.
"We were advising a supermarket
holding company in their philanthropic
efforts," Urban says. "They had employees
who were interested in volunteerism, and
they had a lot of food products on hand
that might have gone unsold for various
reasons. So we had them look at donating
products that were close to the sale date
and getting them into the hands of people

California Business - Volume 3, Issue 1 - Northern California

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