Corporate giving: The PR hype vs. what companies actually donate

Again, I apologize at the bitchy tone of my post yesterday, it's such a nerve for me. And although I apologized in the post for the tone, i'll do it again.

I guess I just think that, even with the NAU 5%, we need to look behind the hype. 5% of NAU sales doesnt' even hold a candle to .5% of MSFT or WALMART etc.... and that the point has to be that we all do what we can. Laud and ask for more of the good without overly demonizing the bad.

I had a very interesting conversation a couple years ago with the president of one of the largest companies in the world, a company that people around the world depend on for that morning jolt, and we were speaking about why they dont' do more, and why they don't publicize what they do. (Indeed, if more people knew what they do, then more people would understand all of the issues involved in coffee-growing regions, and the true cost of all of our addictions etc.....) And the answer was simple. He compared it to being a prairie dog. Prairie dogs have enormous underground lives, and are in integral part of their eco system. But, the minute they pop up above ground, they are susceptible to predators.

Same is true in CSR for major corporations. The moment they come above ground and say, "hey, we're doing this really good thing," the protesters come out and chop their heads off for all the stuff that isn't good. So the company is in this position of, "well, every time we do something good, we get in trouble. so why bother."

that doesnt' entirely hold water for me, but i can see the point. they don't have to do anything good if they don't want to. in many cases, doing something good has an adverse effect on the bottom-line. While a privately held company can deal with that, a publicly held company is legally responsible for delivering returns to investors. so if they're making decisions that lessen returns, they can literally be held legally liable for that. that's a major systemic problem.

I think we're saying the same thing. We need to look beyond the hype - in ALL cases. Cool small companies, corporate CSR campaigns, consumer protests etc..... Because the underlying issues that create the problems, as well as the bureaucracies trying to solve them are very complicated. And most of them are rooted in human behavior of consumers, investors etc..... Like it or not, we are ultimately responsible, and until we are willing to give up the products and lluxuries that create the problems, there is not going to be an easy solution.

But we also need to accept that none of us - individuals, organizations and corporations - are prefect. I'm willing to praise each of us for the things we try to to to make it better, and look at everything on the wide spectrum that is our engagement.....

Yes, keep pushing. For sure. But also, start returning. To something smaller, simpler etc... We don't need plastic water bottles. We don't need all the clothes we have. We don't need diamonds or gold. We don't need a lot of the things that we purchase that create the social and environmental disasters from their manufacture. Ya know?

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Alyssa Royse
JUST CAUSE
make some good news!
www.JustCauseIt.com ( http://www.JustCauseIt.com )

I never said always avoid big companies and only shop at small ones -- I think my title's clear in that I'm saying it's important to look beyond the hype. Certainly the two ideas are related, since big wealthy companies generally have big money and big PR and marketing departments to put towards hyping their stuff.

For ex, a company might do a lot charitably but not spend any money hyping what they've done -- thus, their philanthropic efforts get little attention. Another company might do v. little charitable work and a lot of bad stuff besides, but hype the teensy bit of philanthropy with a hundred press releases, and thus get a disproportional amount of coverage about what a charitable company they are. The public's then left with a warped view of what company is actually working towards good stuff.

And the GOOD mag article does in fact cite a bunch of sources -- It just doesn't provide links (typical of many mags that focus on print). The LA Times series she refers to has a lot of investigative reporting that backs up her writing.

It's of course great when a powerful company like Walmart makes changes. We just need to make sure we look at the changes that're made in context, and keep pushing, instead of just blindly applaud big companies and absolving them of all their continued wrongdoing just because they put out one organic shirt.

Emerald City ( http://latimes.com/emeraldcity.com )
green LA girl ( http://greenlagirl.com )

There is a lot of validity in many of your arguments, to be sure, but there are also a whole lot of slippery slopes flocked in specious reasoning.

I have to start with the Good Magazine article that you refer to. That article is sloppily written, cites no sources and lays out a whole lot of claims that it does not bother to explain or substantiate. (I'll admit that I find that very typical of "Good" reporting.)

It is very easy to demonize "big business." But to ignore the role of big business in the overall health of an economy is really dangerous. Companies - like Microsoft, who the author clearly loves to demonize - add jobs to the economy that in turn provide health care to employees, retirement plans to employees and tax bases that provide education, infrastructure and emergency services to the communities in which they work. The impact of this extends far beyond their employees, and to the people who's small business serve those employees, the teachers who live and work in the community etc...

Most businesses are in business to make money. They make that money by producing the products that the market supports because the individuals who are "the market" are convinced that they need them. If we want businesses to change their ways, then we need to demand change by NOT supporting the products they are selling us. As I sit on the freeway surrounded by cars, filled with people who have bags full of products, or tv's on the headrests of their cars etc.... I see no evidence of the market demanding that business change their ways. Sure, we can ask them to produce all the "crap" that we buy in a better way, but we can also take responsibility for the fact that we are asking for all that crap.

Really, change starts at home. And I don't mean home in the metaphorical sense, I mean the place where both you and I, and everyone else, will actually lay our heads tonight.

Look, I'm as cynical as the next person about the relationship between business and charity, government and social well-being, individuals here and the impact we have on the lives of those on the other side of the planet. (Not demanding cheap yoga pants, for instance, and being willing to pay for the actual cost - human and environmental - of the products we consume is a great step.)

I'm the heretic that is asking for gas to double in price with a 100% tax to undo the international damage of the internal combustion engine. Not because I want to soothe my guilty conscience, but I want a call for REALITY when we look at the cost of our habits.

Also, could corporations do more to NOT inflict harm as well as to ameliorate it after the fact? ABSOLUTELY. But there is more to it than that.

These campaigns that publicize the charitable efforts of major corporations do more than give money. They raise awareness. I happen to think that the (RED) campaign is ridiculous. (And the pink ribbon campaign.) We would all - as individuals - make a much bigger impact if we a) donated directly and b) changed our consumption habits. BUT, those campaigns bring a lot of awareness to causes that were, in many cases, obfuscated previously.

The problem, of course, is that they are inefficient, and often that awareness comes at the cost of awareness to causes that are currently less popular.

Lastly, major corporations are the ones that can shift international markets. NAU is great. They have gorgeous clothes, I love - though cannot afford - them. I applaud everything that the do, really. However, when Wal-Mart (a company that we all love to hate) produced one organic cotton yoga outfit, they shifted the market. That one outfit required that the number of organic and fair-trade cotton farms more than double. And it has stayed that way, as, in order to meet the needs of this MNC, the entire organic cotton market had to grow to meet the need. So, when we demonize big business, we create an us vs. them polemic that is counter productive. After all, if they don't think that we are their market, they won't do what we want..... So we all need to be very careful to remember that we are all in this together.

None of us are perfect. And none of us will solve these problems alone. Together, we have hope, even if we all do it differently.

I did not mean to sound so bitchy. I'm sorry about that, really. I just get so tired of hearing people say that big business is all the problem and little business is (or even can) solving the problems. Or, that we as consumers, and our governments as leaders don't bear equal responsibility.

And please, when reading any article (as opposed to a blog post) PLEASE demand citations. That GOOD piece was nothing more than an unsubstantiated rant that sounded okay because it hit many of our collective buttons.... but it was just a rant. (not unlike this one.)

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Alyssa Royse
JUST CAUSE
make some good news!
www.JustCauseIt.com ( http://www.JustCauseIt.com )