When good charity goes bad

You would think that being charitable is a no-brainer. Think again. In a recent article The Bulletin highlighted numerous moral and marketing complexities involved in the business of giving.

Firstly, here's the good news: "If well handled, says the World Business Council, CSR (corporate social responsibility) can improve brand image, sales and customer loyalty, recruitment and staff retention. In short, a marketing dream."

However companies must be prepared for charities to ask probing questions about where the money comes from. These include queries about a company's environment policies, public health issues, corporate affiliations and investments.

A recent example of how goodwill can turn into a PR issue involves Bill Gates' charity. A recent media investigation claimed the Gates Foundation earned significant financial rewards from investments, such as heavily polluting oil refineries in Africa, which contradicted its charitable works.

Comments

[David Brewster]

This gets to the heart of a serious modern challenge for managers - senior and otherwise: separating spin from reality.

Bottom line: if an organisation is doing CSR for the right reasons - based on their actual values (not necessarily the same as their stated values) - it should be easy.

If an organisation is doing CSR because they feel they have to, chances are a conflict will eventually be exposed.

Confusing spin and reality is one of the central reasons for much of the complexity in modern business.