I recently attended the 2010 Global Corporate Citizenship Conference [16] organized by the US Chamber of Commerce Business Civic Leadership Center [17]. The theme is how corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs and public-private partnerships can help address critical global development issues, including poverty alleviation, health care, economic development, education, women’s development, water sanitation, and disaster relief.
Why do businesses support CSR programs? The unifying theme is it has to be good for their business. Much emphasis was placed on building meaningful and effective public private partnerships. Many corporation representatives expressed that their CSR programs are not donations to charities but business investments that should reflect companies’ values and business models. Corporations seek real returns on these investments.
In the process to building effective partnerships, NGOs are encouraged to approach corporations to design CSR programs together, rather than only having discussion during the implementation stage.
The CSR programs featured during the conference reflected three common focuses listed below. After each focus, I have also included a good example that I have seen during the conference.
• Strategic building of the company brand (Pepsi Refresh Project [18])
• Local relationship building (Gap Inc. PACE Project [19])
• Building a community of employees (IBM Corporate Service Corps [20])
Professional and work skills training is common tool used in many CSR programs. IREX has solid experience in designing and implementing projects that focus on training activities and building local workforce, such as the Youth Initiative for the Promotion of Peace in the North Caucasus [21] and Young Women’s Leadership Programs in Egypt [22] and Yemen [23].
This conference was a great opportunity for me to meet and share experience with professionals who seek to create positive impact across public and private sectors. I look forward to seeing IREX participating in more projects that can build on the synergies with business corporations.
Chia-Yang Kao is a Development Coordinator at IREX