Rethinking Corporate Giving

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Organizational Culture  

While not universal, a lot of employers in recent years have encouraged employers to donate their time and/or money. That might be matching programs for financial donations, one or more paid days off each year for volunteering, or other support type programs. These are well received and benefit everyone involved.

At the same time, organizations often select one or more causes that they will support financially each year, and their donations can make a significant impact on the ability of those organizations to operate. But I can’t help thinking that as we close out 2021, they aren’t enough.

A lot is changing in the world—the pandemic of course, but also growing action around climate change, much more awareness about issues around social injustice, voting rights, and so on. The high-profile initiatives around these are getting a lot of government support and/or private funding from major corporations, but at the grassroots level there is still a reliance on volunteers and small-scale fundraising.

All of these issues have been politicized to a degree, and that will serve to create caution in organizations who don’t want to alienate portions of their potential customer or employee bases by taking a stand that is unpopular. But there are opportunities for organizations, employees and volunteer organizations to partner to create much more meaningful …

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