Hurleys on sidelines, painting in schools: how charity begins at US multinationals

At a time when the future of US firms in Ireland could come under pressure from the new political dispensation back home, the strength of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes could well emerge as an important tool in cementing and even expanding their operations here.

New research by the University of Notre Dame, commissioned by the American Chamber of Commerce Ireland, has revealed that US firms supported 7,300 community projects countrywide last year. This support saw more than 52,000 employees donate 600,000 volunteer hours to a host of initiatives in the areas of education, sport, health, Stem, culture, homelessness, social justice and inclusion.

The report says Ireland has become a laboratory for CSR innovation, with many programmes initiated here by larger American firms being adapted to their operations in other European countries.

International research, the report states, shows there is a direct correlation between the strength of companies’ ties to their local communities and their CSR-related activities.

Ireland is rated as well above the European average in terms of the number of its citizens belonging to community or voluntary organisations, as well as in terms of informal social contact, civic engagement, social-support networks and trust in institutions. So it stands to reason that opportunities to build relationships with local communities by working with charities and non-profit organisations are plentiful.

More than two-thirds of US firms here have formal CSR programmes and a similar proportion also encourage individual employees to volunteer.

IBM, which has more than 3,000 employees in Ireland and is celebrating 50 years here, has had a long and proud tradition of CSR, says corporate citizenship and corporate affairs manager Deirdre Kennedy.

Smarter Cities challenge

At the top end of the scale, it has the Smarter Cities challenge, for which city councils in three cities – Belfast, Dublin and Limerick – have each received $500,000 (€468, 521) worth of consultancy services aimed at helping them address specific issues or initiatives through expertise in data analytics, human resources and product innovations.

But it also provides generous consulting services worth hundreds of thousands to smaller organisations through its Impact Grants programme. “The Impact Grants programme is where we send consultants, primarily, to go and work with organisations on a testing issue and help them to understand it and to address that issue so they can work more effectively.”

The company is careful to ensure the benefit can be utilised to the full by the recipients. “They have to the capacity to carry out the recommendations that we might make for them so it’s not just a case of ‘well IBM did this for us but we can’t actually do anything with it’.”

But it is volunteering programmes that clearly have the biggest social impact, particularly for the company’s employees. In the last year, IBM employees conducted more than 150 community engagements, resulting in more than 10,500 hours of volunteering.

“Every single time we run a volunteering programme [for employees], particularly when there are teams involved, they always come back to me and ask when they can do something again, because they get far more out of it sometimes than the organisations they work with,” says Kennedy. “And often they are working with employees in the company that they may not know so they make connections internally.”

The days of firms engaging with companies on a once-off basis look set to end. The University of Notre Dame report found that of the companies surveyed who have long-term charity partners, 67 per cent of those are multi-annual arrangements and another 26 per cent of companies are planning to implement long-term partnerships.

“It’s more about addressing particular challenges than what might be called chequebook philanthropy.”

Sharon McCooey, senior director of international operations and site leader of LinkedIn Ireland, says the company works regularly with a number of partners, including Plan International Ireland, where each month a staff member can volunteer to call their donors. “The calls vary from a simple ‘thank you’, a personal invitation to an upcoming event or an update on their contribution. These calls have helped to generate increased donor loyalty, resulting in a substantial financial benefit to the charity over the past five years.”

The Notre Dame report also says there is evidence that CSR is increasingly democratically organised with almost half (48 per cent) of companies surveyed having an all-staff dedicated annual volunteering day.

McCooey says the most important plank of its CSR programme, LinkedIn For Good, is what it calls an ‘InDay’.

“This is a day that we give staff a day every month to invest in themselves and causes that they are passionate about. We encourage employee-led and designed initiatives, with members of our team empowered to champion causes about which they are passionate, and we partner with GoFundMe, to match charity fundraising our team members take on.”

Youth-related organisations

Relationships with youth-related organisations are also particularly popular among US firms here, with 73 per cent of them listing such groups among their charity partners. LinkedIn works with school development charity Junior Achievement Ireland, as does insurance firm MetLife. The life insurance provider also funds ‘Finance Your Future’ programme that teaches 4th-, 5th- and 6th-year students the skills they will need to manage their financial lives in a responsible way. The programme reached 1,177 students from 30 schools with 58 volunteers, spanning 10 counties across Ireland.

But even as CSR continues to evolve and become more targeted, the simple feelgood factor of being part of the local communities in which you operate and simple things like fundraising remain important activities for firms like Cisco, which raises almost €40,000 a year for a range of charities in Ireland as well as logging hundreds of voluntary hours.

“Variously throughout the year, Cisco Ireland employees paint and clean schools, walk dogs in animal shelters, work in community gardens, provide assistance in schools and nursing homes, hold hurleys on the sideline as well as many other hands-on voluntary work, all during normal work hours, fully supported by the corporate culture and policy,” says Pat Hession, director of engineering at Cisco Ireland.

This grassroots support of local communities in Galway and Dublin is what helps define a company’s contribution. “Cisco doesn’t sponsor huge professional sports teams. It chooses instead to sponsor the guy standing on the line at your local GAA pitch.”