Financial Times

A holistic approach to CSR
At the Cinnamon Grand hotel last Tuesday, E.M. Susantha, a blind music teacher from Embilipitiya played a beautiful tune on the flute at the 2006 Community Leader Awards presentation.

On the same night – just some metres away at the Galle Face Hotel -- another differently-abled child danced before an audience gathered to present awards of excellence to those with special needs.

Both events portrayed the skills of this special group of people, something hopefully the corporate sector would recognise in their recruitment plans and support of special causes.

When Dr Sarath Amunugama, Minister of Public Administration and Home Affairs, spoke of the need for quality education saying “We need good teachers, good systems and models that are current and the private sector can help alot here..” one hopes that he and education planners too would take into consideration the needs of people with special needs.

Besides that, the Community Leader Awards organised by The Sunday Times and CIMA, Sri Lanka division had one simple message last week, “When you (private sector) give to the needy, give with your heart – not sign on a blank cheque.”

This is what Indian film director and UNICEF Special Envoy, Mahesh Bhatt, who flew down especially for this event, had to say, “The private sector should realise that giving essentially does not mean ‘charity’ per say. You are a custodian of what you are holding.

The proper word should be giving, because the word charity is a vulgar word, which insinuates that the receiver is burdened with indebtedness to the giver.” Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), as defined by the grand winner of this year’s awards Slimline, must be in the ‘gene or DNA of a company.’
Social responsibility, as we found out after a hectic couple of months organising the event, is very much alive in many companies. Many have their own CSR divisions and often speak of helping the community with ‘hearts and minds’ programmes – not merely doling out cash and publishing it grandly in a glossy annual report.

Some months ago when a top Colombo organisation that worked to uplift rural farmers across the country decided to apply for a different set of social responsibility awards, the blunt advice was: ‘Don’t’.

It was pointed out by advisors that glossy annual reports and newspaper clippings were among the main criteria for the awards. The concerned company had a lousy annual report – not in terms of having all the required numbers – but in terms of presentation. It also didn’t seek media attention. Why? Because its concern was more to do with what goes on in the field than in the office. “Your application will get thrown out on the strength of a not-so-nice looking report.” The company didn’t apply and stuck to its task of fostering good relations with rural farmers and their families.

So what are the lessons learnt in this year’s awards for the Best Community Leader in education? In the words of Dr. Hiranthi Wijemanne, Sri Lanka’s best known specialist on children’s issues, who headed the eminent panel of judges for this event, “the judges looked at companies which adopted a strategy for CSR based on a holistic approach, when reviewing them for the awards.”
What she meant was that among the criteria for selection was assessing whether corporates were into CSR for the long haul instead of one-off projects.

Sustainability was what the judges looked for as the key to furtherance of education initiatives. Here is a story that illustrates the need for sustainability.
Many years ago when a group of directors from a Colombo-based company were present at the opening of three pre-schools in Vavuniya district funded by them through a fund-raising concert, the headman of one of the villages thanked them but lamented about the lack of a regular teacher. “Sir, our teachers are volunteers. Whenever a volunteer gets a job, she goes away and then we don’t have a teacher,” he told the group.

Moved by the plea and the children who greeted them, the directors decided to pay the cost of a teacher for a full year. The moral of this story is that while Sri Lankan corporates – judging from the high level of applications for the Community Leader awards- are increasingly supportive of the community, the value of their support would be judged on the sustainability of what they do. That in essence was what this awards scheme was all about.

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