Your Reading List

Corporate citizenship

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Published: October 17, 2012

Corporations think strategically about how to invest their donations budgets for both altruistic and business goals. Then they review the effectiveness of those dollars.


On sunny day last October nearly 3,000 spectators watched as farmers near Monkton, Ont. set a world record time for harvesting 160 acres of standing soybeans. They did it in under 11 minutes, thanks to 115 combines.

In total, those combines harvested about 8,000 bushels, which were then auctioned off to raise $250,000 for the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.

The list of contributors to this event called Harvest for Humanity, were mostly agricultural, ranging from individual local farmers to huge multinational corporations. On that list was BASF’s crop protection division, a global business that posted sales of over $8 billion in 2010.

Read Also

3d rendered wooden rollercoaster

Riding the tariff rollercoaster

Farmers are accustomed to roller-coaster years.  But the current geopolitical windstorm is something else entirely. On his cattle operation near…

This company didn’t get on the list arbitrarily. Like other big corporations, BASF uses a predetermined process to consciously and critically choose sponsorship. In this case, the Monkton project tied in with one of BASF’s five pillars of operation, sustainability.

As I scan down the list of other sponsors, I recognize some of the names of the farm families and wonder how they chose to sponsor this event. Was it based on emotions — guilt or a genuine desire to help — or maybe it was a quick last-minute gut decision, or perhaps they had just got into a better position to see their year-end and they knew they’d have the cash available.

If your local hockey league asks you to sponsor a team, you’re likely going to do it without any thought of the payback. However, with fewer and fewer farmers and an insatiable number of organizations needing time and money, the decision of how much to give to whom is getting tougher.

Maybe it’s time to learn from larger companies how to think more strategically about corporate citizenship instead of the fire-a-shotgun-at-the-squeaky-wheel-until-there’s-no-ammo-left approach.

Mike Schaad, eastern Canadian business manager for BASF, is part of the group that decides which projects his company sponsors. Their budget is set a year ahead, somewhat based on budgeted sales, with a rough split geographically of about three-quarters in Western and one-quarter in Eastern Canada.

The BASF territory managers are asked to submit ideas from their respective areas to be selected centrally. “The territory managers have better touch points; they know the organizations and they know the people involved,” says Schaad.

Filtering a year ahead at the local level weeds out projects that maybe wouldn’t be as well planned or as significant to their customers. After all, the main idea is to put BASF in a positive light with the company’s grower customers.

“If it’s important to our end-users, it’s important to us,” says Schaad. “I have never met a farmer who isn’t socially responsible and cares for the environment. It’s part of their core beliefs.”

Schaad has been with BASF for 26 years and has noticed corporate citizenship in the industry becoming more important. “Generally the social conscientiousness of the world is greater and we’re part of that world.”

In fact, he says the agricultural part of BASF has been a leader in the company in executing and making sustainability real. In Canada, that goal is reached by sponsoring grassroots events with long-range impacts, like the Canadian Foodgrains Bank project.

Through informal discussion, a committee of four decides which projects nominated by their sales staff meet the corporate criteria of sustainability. Having more than one person involved in the decision takes the subjectivity out of it, says Schaad, and everyone’s idea of social responsibility is different. “We try to strike a balance between ecological, social and economic needs.”

Although BASF doesn’t require recognition or an advertising campaign, he says it’s nice to be recognized for the time and effort.

Nice to be seen

According to a recent survey by charity research group and watchdog, Imagine Canada, most companies give to improve their reputation. However, about three-quarters of businesses would give to charities even if they didn’t get any business benefits in return.

At BASF, public relations is becoming a larger part of their promotional budget. “With all the forms of communication, we’re bombarded with so much information so we’re always looking for ways to break through the clutter with positive messages,” says Schaad.

Businesses are a growing source of support to the charitable and non-profit sector and large ag businesses are stepping up. Cargill contributes more than $57.5 million a year to charities and community causes globally, about two per cent of its pre-tax earnings. About $2 million of this is spent in Canada. In 2010, Viterra donated about $1.5 million to a number of different community initiatives.

About 30 years ago, seed company Pioneer Hi-Bred started a fund to invest in organizations and projects to help improve the quality of lives in communities across Canada where their customers, sales representatives and employees both live and work. As Pioneer has grown, the amount of money dedicated from the initial launch of the Community Investment Program has more than tripled, says Tara Moir, the company’s communications manager. Pioneer also provides funding for community projects above and beyond the Community Investment Program, and these dollars have also increased over time.

So business philanthropy lives, but most often it’s not nearly so planned and analysed. Of the 1,500 businesses surveyed by Imagine Canada, only 22 per cent have a regular ongoing program for contributions, only 13 per cent measure the benefits, and only eight per cent have a written policy.

Pioneer is one ag company that does have a written policy for their Community Investment Program. Instead of locally recommended projects, like BASF, Pioneer accepts only written applications which are sorted through and selected by a committee based on written guidelines.

Made up of employee representatives, this committee reviews and decides on proposals on a quarterly basis. It looks favourably on charitable organizations and projects that involve its customers, seed growers, employees and sales agents.

The policy states that this fund does not support individuals, organizations lacking charitable status, religious or political organizations promoting a particular doctrine, elected officials, sports organizations and events, marketing or advertising programs or organizations where there is a conflict of interest with Pioneer values.

Instead, the policy says, the focus of the proposal should be on agriculture and conservation, education and leadership development, rural health and welfare, and heritage preservation or the arts in rural communities.

Pioneer does have some other initiatives beyond this fund. For example, youth hockey teams across Western Canada can enter a contest to possibly win a set of game-quality jerseys.

Increase the impact

Beyond trying to do some good, this is about creating a positive image that customers and employees remember. The BASF committee tries to select organizations and events with more people involved, including their own staff. At least, the local sales representatives will often attend events.

Companies have also been known to hire a photographer or use advertising companies to get more mileage out of sponsorship. Company logos and names are sometimes placed on signs, items and press releases.

That kind of spending may be out of reach for most farms, but a call to local newspaper reporters or posting photographs on websites can go a surprising distance to creating image.

There are also internal benefits. BASF staff share stories of granted projects through an internal newsletter. It makes the staff feel good that they work for a company that sponsors programs that support sustainability, says Schaad.

Schaad has also noticed in the last three years that more people he interviews for full and summer staff jobs want to know about the company’s social responsibility.

Employees want to work for a company with a good reputation, but upper management has to create the will and the structure for delivery.

Corporate citizenship then becomes part of a cutting-edge organization’s culture, Schaad says. “It’s higher up in their decision-making.” CG

About The Author

Maggie Van Camp

Contributor

Maggie Van Camp is co-founder and director of strategic change at Loft32. She recently launched Farmers’ Bridge to help farm families navigate transitions and build their businesses with better communication. Learn more about Maggie at loft32.ca/farmersbridge

explore

Stories from our other publications