Corporate Social Responsibility

Hi everyone,
So I’ve I said in my last post, last week I had a better look at the CSR activities of the company. And I have been positively surprised.

The company is really engaged in CSR activities as it has created a foundation, the ‘Fondation Espoir Development’(FED), which is a separate entity directed by its own board of directors comprising people from NMH and external individuals. The foundation is not only giving money to NGO’s, beside it has its own CSR programs mainly centre on education and training as its guiding philosophy can be resumed by the Chinese proverb ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime’.

Though the FED is a separate body it is closely link to the communication department which hold down the communication work; the department is actually doing the brochures, updating the website, organising events and so on. Last week I was actually redesigning the brochure and updating the website.

Another reason why the FED and the communication department are closely link is because my boss (the comm. Manager) is the chairman of the FED. The fact that it is the communication manager who is the chairman can bring a plus to the company as he will be more apt to promote the image of the company trough their CSR activities. As we have learnt in class it is important that the PR professional is assigned to a top management role in the company. (I don’t dissociate the communication manager and the PR one as from what I’ve been able to observed they endorse the same role, if someone can explain to me the difference, you are welcome!!!)

The FED is celebrating its 10 years of existence this year and the company had planned to organise a major event. However because of the financial crisis, though the CSR budget had not been reduced, the priorities has changed and they are planning to organise a less grandiose event which of course mean less media coverage and positive publicity for the company. I think however that they are right as organising a pompous event those days may be seen as superficial particularly for a foundation, and this could have created negative publicity. However the timeframe is crucial and it’s not before at least 5years that the company will be able to organise a big event celebrating its years of existence. What do you think is the best solution? Organise an event as each year for the 10years?

As we have learnt the newsworthiness of the event is crucial and for me, the FED must organise an event that is newsworthy enough to create a buzz around the 10years while not being pretentious. They must not organise the same stuff as before, the event must be imaginative, and this for me is the most difficult part of the job!

This week is my last week and I am surprised to learn new things everyday. Its very interesting to see how to put into practice all what we have learnt
Hope you too are enjoying!!!