CSRn't - fixing a broken agenda

9 months ago, I began working for ACEVO, the association of chief executives of voluntary organisations. I head up the commercial partnerships department. This means I manage our relationships with around 100 businesses.

ACEVO exists to support, develop, connect and represent our 2000 members, and we're very good at it. Over the last 10 years, we have made some very significant changes to how third sector organisations can work with government. See here for our Strategy Director's blog - http://sebelsworth.blogspot.com/ for an insight on how we operate with our friends in Whitehall.

So these two things tie together - take public service delivery - third sector orgs competing for contracts, or often sub-contracting to a larger, private sector company such as SERCO, one of our commercial partners. It makes sense that we can draw the three sectors together, not just two.

The conversation went thus: "we've done a great deal to fundamentally change the architecture of the third sector's relationship with government. we've become good at it. So good, in fact, that we are often looked to as the voice of the sector."
"Interesting. So how can we do this with the private sector?"

In fact, the question is 'why shouldn't we do this with the private sector?'
ACEVO has a unique position in this debate. We are a leading voice of the third sector, and we have strong contacts with business. Many organisations, clubs and initiatives looking at developing CSR strategies and agendas for business to interact with third sector organisations are on the periphery, looking into one of the two sectors. We are in the middle, interacting with all three. We have the influence and the access to some of the greatest thinkers in each area, and we are now going to make the most of this.

I titled this post "CSRn't", and I think it covers how we feel about the initiative-itis that people can feel about CSR. All too often, businesses are encouraged to either pay a lot of money, or simply go through a box ticking exercise to prove how good they are at CSR. Two anecdotes show the flimsy nature of this type of engagement:

1) Law firm. 50 partners, 250 staff. Based in London. Each staff member gets one day of volunteering per year. Very commendable. Think of the impact a lawyer can make in one day - they might sit on the board of a charity, putting their legal acumen to good use; similarly, they could spend a day with a social enterprise, guiding them through the minefield of legal issues they face.
Of course they do none of these things. Instead, their HR director organises a day when they all go to a local primary school, and they paint the climbing frame, they paint murals of fields and sea-sides on the walls, have someone write it up for their newsletter, take a couple of photographs and go home.


2) Investment bank, Canary Wharf, London: picture the 25th floor cafeteria around lunch time. 2 visiting CSR directors are discussing with their opposite number how the host company 'does CSR'. With a sense of ceremony that leads us to believe he has done this before , the host stands, looks north, and points. "Between Aldgate and Mile End", he says. Is this ideal? Is this what we want to hear?

Again, we can see the rather Victorian attitudes that prevail among many CSR professionals. But not everyone will do this. Many have excellent policies and agendas. In fact, ACEVO have been asked a couple of times to talk to partners of professional services firms on how to become a trustee.

The other thing we need to remember at this point, is that it isn't always about MONEY! Cash is often not the best thing business can give charity. Expertise is just as valuable on many occasions. Also, we have seen this year just how corporate philanthropy can suffer in bad economic conditions.

So, our aim with this area of work is to address the issues of sustainability. Not in a green sense, but in it's broadest sense. We want to build relationships between private and third sectors that are sustainable. To do this, we need to create business relationships, Just like ACEVO member Joyce Moseley of Catch-22 has just signed with SERCO.

In February, we will be launching our Sustainable Business Forum. The steering committee is chaired by Oliver Rothschild, who has sat on the board of UNICEF as well as many other charities, and has business interests that will all benefit from partnering with the third sector. As well as Oliver, we have support from Mike Barry, head of sustainable business at M&S, Ben Brabyn, CEO of Bmycharity, the online fundraising website that now charges 0% commission on donations, and other businesses such as Jupiter Asset Management. On the third sector side, CEO of Social Enterprise London and vice-chair of ACEVO, Allison Ogden-Newton, and other great minds will be leading the debate.

This blog will report all the news from this forum, from topics on the agenda to the lively discussions and more heated arguments. It will follow the discussion, how the debate evolves, make a note of the good stories and bad, and also look at the implementation of all of our ideas.
This is the most important thing, and what will separate us from the initiative-itis riddled corpses that have come before. This Forum will be more than about thinking, it will be about doing, and telling that story.