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What Is Corporate Social Responsibility
30th May, 2003

By Richard Jones

A weekly review of daily newspapers is sure to make reference to corporate contributions to one of many worthy causes across the island. Such contributions are important to many sporting and social causes and simultaneously provide marketing and public relations value for donating companies. Indeed sports seem to be the most popular activity in this respect, receiving a disproportionate level of corporate sponsorship in relation to social activities.  This may be largely due to the substantial number of active sporting groups and clubs in Barbados and from a company perspective, relatively substantial involvement of a potential market for their goods and services.  

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in its very general sense includes many of the type of corporate contributions previously mentioned. In recent times however, CSR has been attributed to a more engaging relationship between communities and companies tackling a myriad of social, economic, environmental and cultural issues that affect both parties.  Partnership between representatives of the communities (via local clubs, charities and NGOs) and the private entity is key to CSR relationships and is the fundamental characteristic that distinguishes Corporate Social Responsibility from traditional philanthropic and marketing efforts of companies.  The intent is to engage at a much wider level the business’s operations and relations with communities.  CSR embraces what is often called the “triple bottom line” where a reasonable degree of attention is paid not just to economic performance but also to environment and social impacts.

Within the increasingly competitive globalised environment, the process whereby companies give away money to good causes has been superceded to a large extent by CSR, which is a more strategic tool that ties donations of money, time and in-kind gifts to defined business goals and desired benefits.  In simple terms that mean that companies need to have a concrete policy on CSR so that giving is sustained and carefully planned to have the greatest impact.  It has been noted that companies that have created corporate foundations or corporate giving programmes have discovered that partnerships between private enterprise and public interest can produce profitable outcomes for all.

A fine example of such partnerships and focus on CSR has been the vast size and proliferation of corporate “giving programmes”, foundations and funds.  Almost all recognised international companies have similar establish entities bearing company names and or the names of their founders for the sole purpose of managing their Corporate Social Responsibility. Some “giving programmes” of note include the Shell Foundation, Citigroup Foundation, AT&T Foundation and Microsoft Giving. All of these entities have invested substantial resources in social investment programmes.  In fact, Microsoft Giving and its employees donated more than US$246.9 million last year alone towards programmes that:

• Expanded opportunities through technology access
• Strengthening nonprofits through technology
• Developing a diverse technology workforce
• Building community

Microsoft has been able to integrate its core business activities with the social and economic well-being of the community by providing finance and technology to support its policy and vision for a better society.

Internationally, the sizes of giving programmes and Corporate and Private Foundations have grown to such vast proportions, that the assets of the largest Private Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, can collectively repay the international and domestic debt of Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Belize and still easily retain half of its value.

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