Denis O’Brien, chairman and founder of Digicel Group and patron of the Digicel Haiti Foundation sits in a classroom with Haitian school children.
The way companies give is changing. Many of today’s organisations are integrating philanthropy into the heart of the business, bringing benefits to employees as well as recipients.
Companies with strong corporate philanthropy programmes are increasingly seeing benefits to their own bottom lines. While the main focus is to help the recipients, there is growing evidence that they can also have a positive impact on the companies themselves.
From improved employee retention and recruitmentto boosting the authenticity of a brand and increasing trust, companies that engage in meaningful programmes are reaping the rewards. Philanthropy improves relationships between companies and their clients and potential clients and this helps to build support for the brand.
Consumers tend to support a brand because of the values associated with that brand.
There has been a shift in the way corporations approach philanthropy, with many moving from just donating money to setting up foundations that align with their core values and purpose as a business, as well as introducing employee volunteer programmes in which their own staff offer their time and skills to good causes.
Philanthropy enables business to meet corporate social responsibility expectations people have of today’s businesses. If you are a company who needs to build trust and credibility with people, whether staff, the public, customers, shareholders, or whoever your stakeholders are, the public expects you to play a role in helping to address social issues.
Mobile phone network provider Digicel certainly embraces this culture. Digicel and its shareholders set-up a charitable arm — the Digicel Foundation — which is founded on the simple principle that as their businesses grow across regions such as the Caribbean, so too must the communities it serves. It has spent $122,180,269 in community investments to date.
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