By Rebecca Watriss, Guest Blogger

Ann and Wendy are pioneers in stewarding the transition of  corporate philanthropy from a request-based practice of giving to a more proactive, targeted, and informed process of expanding the global impact of corporate business and values.

Ann Cramer is the director Americas of IBM Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs, while Wendy Ramage Hawkings holds the position of executive director of the Intel Foundation.

Chris Pinney, director of Research and Policy at the Boston College Center, jump-started this session on corporate foundations in transition with a quick history lesson on the topic of foundations.

As he explained it, in the twentieth century social contract governments took care of social welfare and public policy and NGOs filled in the cracks, leaving the private sector to pay taxes, obey laws, provide jobs, and engage in philanthropy. In the twenty-first century, a new social contract was born out of an intersection between social welfare, public policy, and a competitive context, with the private sector, public sector, and NGOs all engaging in problem solving around topics of community concern. Community involvement turned into corporate foundations, which provided support of transactional philanthropy, both regularizing and instituting procedures for giving.

Even in the context of an economic downturn, expectations of the private sector remain high, and corporate citizenship and philanthropy have become much more a question of what companies DO, not (just) what they give. A company is now judged not only by its products and services, but by how it operates, and by its level and effectiveness of community engagement.

Enter companies like Intel and IBM. In striving to integrate philanthropy into the strategy of their businesses, they (and their employees) have actively entered global communities, using the corporate entities as “headlights” to access influencers and inform themselves about social issues, and using their foundations to gain greater flexibility and sustainability in their contribution strategies. Instead of simply granting funds to NGOs to effect change in the realm of social welfare, these companies have committed their corporate resources (employees, technologies, research), as well as funds, to philanthropic projects and partnerships. This strategy of integration benefits the global communities in which the companies invest, but also benefits the corporate structures, in terms of employee recruitment and retention, global reputation, and business development. Ultimately, the way they conduct philanthropic and community engagement projects impacts the way they develop products and conduct business – and vice versa.

Staffing a foundation is a very different job now than it was a decade or two ago. It’s no longer just a function of giving money. The philosophy of ‘giving back’ to the community is no longer entirely applicable, as foundations have begun to ‘invest’ in communities, and have begun actively evaluating what is accomplished as a result.

A foundation staffer, then, now needs to cultivate an ongoing awareness of social issues, an understanding of the social and competitive landscape, and an understanding of which partnership opportunities best represent corporate values. Furthermore, philanthropic teams are measured based on output targets (numbers of partnerships, grants, impact, etc), while also being expected to understand and represent the potential for positive and beneficial ‘investment’ outcomes, which are often harder to quantify.

But, as Wendy put it, “the foundation has been the seed crystal around which Intel’s corporate citizenship and philanthropy have developed.”

Tags: 2010 Conference, corporate foundations, corporate philanthropy, philanthropy
This entry was posted by Rebecca Watriss, Guest Blogger on Wednesday, April 21st, 2010 at 2:15 PM, and is filed under Center News & Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.