Good giving is good business

By Sue McCabe, Chief Executive, Philanthropy New Zealand | Tōpūtanga Tuku Aroha o Aotearoa. A guest editorial written for the JB Were Corporate Support Report, released July 2022. Business Desk has also been running a series on the charity sector. Click here to read the latest article on corporate giving.

The team at Philanthropy New Zealand | Tōpūtanga Tuku Aroha o Aotearoa are massive fans of good business, and love cheerleading and supporting companies investing in community. 

Corporates are part of the community – they don’t sit outside of it. Corporates hire their staff and contract suppliers from communities; sell goods and services to them; and their investors and stakeholders live in them and are influenced by their chosen communities.  

Strong communities are good for business. And weak communities negatively impact corporates. As the media are recently highlighting in the ongoing ramraids on businesses. Corporates with public-facing staff have long dealt with the health and safety risks those who have slipped through community safety nets can pose to employees. Corporates have as much of a responsibility - as well as vested interest - as other sectors to care about and act in the interests of community wellbeing. Corporates need to join Government, philanthropy and not for profits in the collective effort. 

This JBWere Report sets out the attractive reasons corporates should give. Giving is important so that companies can recruit and retain top talent; due to the rising number of conscious consumers; and because of the growing pool of research showing it helps the bottom line. It’s also the right thing to do and immensely personally rewarding. New Zealand and international research shows people who donate or give in other ways are happier than non-givers. 

A corporate won’t realise the benefits of community investment however if the giving is simply viewed as a marketing exercise. Philanthropy needs to be part of a wider approach to good business. A good business will look at what Te Tiriti o Waitangi and our country’s history means for society today and their operations. It’ll treat staff, suppliers, contractors and customers well. It’ll look at sustainability in its supply chain and be reducing its carbon footprint.  

Philanthropy again is only one part of a wider community investment strategy. Corporates offer valuable help when they donate product, volunteer the time and skills of their staff, promote payroll giving, or make office space available free to community organisations.  

However, the importance of cash cannot be downplayed therefore philanthropy should be an integral part of a corporate’s giving strategy. There is huge environmental and social need in our country, but we have amazing community organisations with passion, specialist knowledge and skills to help. Corporate philanthropy can enable them to have greater impact and make a real difference in people’s lives.  

As with the other areas of being a good business, philanthropy is a learning journey and you can’t expect to nail it overnight. It’s surprisingly hard to give money away well and in a way that will suit your corporate and its staff. This is where companies like JBWere come into their own to offer specialist help.  

Philanthropy New Zealand | Tōpūtanga Tuku Aroha o Aotearoa is a membership organisation and we offer our corporate members advice; connections with other funders we know they’ll enjoy engaging and sharing learnings with; information; research; events; and training to make their giving programme easier and more effective. People who run philanthropy programmes within corporates often benefit from having a support network like ours to tap into. 

We’re developing a new service which corporates have told us they’re keen on. Match | Te Puna Taurite will connect those with funds to those that seek them. 

Charities can post funding requests to get in front of multiple funders with one action – which is great for them, particularly the smaller ones without resource to identify funding sources and undertake the work to apply.  

Previous JBWere Research, The Support Report, estimated that that 91 per cent of the $3.8b given in the philanthropic dollar in 2018 in Aotearoa New Zealand went to just nine percent of charities. Those that are easy to find with high public profile get the vast majority of the cash.  

Via Match | Te Puna Taurite, funders can get beyond the easiest charities to find to search for community groups working in particular areas they want to support, and view their funding requests. Corporate givers can connect with like-minded funders too, and choose to receive information on areas they’re most interested in.  

Match | Te Puna Taurite is another tool in the corporate giver’s toolkit. 

In summary, we’d like to thank JBWere for continuing to tell the story of giving with valuable reports like these.  

We want to shout out all the corporates investing in their communities. We love hearing stories of corporate generosity so get in touch with us to tell us about your activity or to ask for help. We firmly believe the more profile corporate philanthropy gets, the more it will be normalised as just what business does, and then the amount given will grow and grow. And Aotearoa New Zealand will become more awesome!