Philanthropy - Essay Example

Philanthropy From a literal perspective, philanthropy means the "love for humanity" and it is also vivid in the sense of caring, loving, nourishing and enhancing which could be integrated with the fact of being human and caring for human needs and feelings in general. Literature review One of the most conventional viewpoints of philanthropy is giving and providing private and public and enhancing the general quality of life. This fact also combines with social and scientific aspects of philanthropy which were developed in 20th century by humanistic and cultural aspect which serves within the contrast aspect of philanthropy along with business and economical needs of philanthropy. Along with that, private and public initiatives were also focused along with material prosperity of humans in general (Porter and Kramer 56). In the modern era, general instances of philanthropy coincide with the instances of charity and human well being. However not all the money and resources donated can be termed as philanthropy. The core difference between charity and philanthropy is that charity helps in relieving the pains of social problems, whereas philanthropy tries in solving these problems and identifies their root causes and tries to eliminate those issues by implementing certain important concepts (Smith 105). Macro environment The macro environment comprises of big societal forces and factors which basically influence Philanthropy. Besides that, the Macro environment consists of Political and legal environment, which significantly influences strategies and tactics for philanthropy. Before implementing the concept of philanthropy, is imperative for a company to consider these factors as well, while formulating their business and marketing strategies and tactics (Constantelos 10). Importance of corporate social responsibility The society expects from the corporations that they will fulfill their corporate social responsibility. Basically, there are four different stages of corporate social responsibility, which are as follows: Economic responsibilities Legal responsibilities Ethical responsibilities Philanthropic responsibilities Economic responsibilities These corporations are accountable to their shareholders, in terms of economic return, as these shareholders expect from the companies, in which they have invested their capital, a reasonable rate of return. Furthermore, these corporations are also required to fulfill their duties towards their employees, by providing them with their right to work in reasonable working conditions. Besides that, they are also required to fulfill their responsibilities towards their customers, who demand high-quality products and services at reasonable prices. Thus, the core objective of any company is to have such effective and efficient economic units which possess the potential to provide reasonable level of support and assistance to the other operational units in a company. Legal responsibilities Even though companies have very few legal responsibilities, however, it is their foremost duty to ensure that they fulfill such legal responsibilities, which either the local, provincial or federal government imposes on them. Moreover, it is possible that the imposed rules and regulations on such companies may not cover each and every part of a company’s comprehensive business functions. Besides that, it is the responsibility of the concerned governments to ensure that companies, falling under their respective territories, are protected from any preventable threats. Ethical responsibilities It is imperative for the corporations to fulfill their ethical responsibilities as well, by conducting their business operations in an ethically and morally acceptable manner. Nowadays, due to immense global competition, companies have become extremely concerned regarding the adaption of such procedures, which would facilitate them to clearly depict their CSR policies and activities, to the public, in general. Moreover, at present, companies concentrate heavily on conducting evident training programs, and in such situations, CSR and business simulations play a crucial role to facilitate the companies to effectively conduct such training programs. Besides that, the corporate customers are getting deeply concerned regarding the environmental and ethical issues, and consequently, they opt to purchase as per their environmental and ethical interest. Philanthropic responsibilities There are some philanthropic responsibilities which the society expects from the corporations to comply with. Such responsibilities include, making charitable donations, provision of financial assistance to the local communities and also offering their employees various economic incentives as well, thus providing them with an opportunity to make their lives better. By engaging themselves in such kinds of activities, companies can capitalize the opportunity to improve their market reputation and can also increase their goodwill amongst their customers as well. Besides that, by offering financial assistance for such causes, for instance, arts, education, accommodation, healthiness, public wellbeing, environment and for various other similar causes, companies can easily seize the opportunity to further improve their market standing and goodwill amongst their customers too. Benefits of corporate social responsibility implementation The advantages which a company can attain by implementing corporate social responsibility vary from a company to another company, as per their respective nature of business. Basically, CSR comprises of making generous efforts and providing financial assistance to the unprivileged masses, on voluntary basis. There are numerous companies which implement such principles, which are similar to CSR, but apparently, they lack an explicitly defined program or a team for this purpose and they may be based within some departments of a company, such as, human resources department, business development department or public relations department. CSR can play a crucial role in numerous aspects of a business, such as, establishing customer loyalty, as based on distinguishing moral principles and by forming such strong and long-term relations with the customers, organizations can benefit itself by depicting more visibly, its integrity and unmatched corporate performances. Example-Emaar Properties and Dubai Cares In December 2013, The MD of Emaar properties Ahmad Al Matrooshi the CEO of Emaar Malls made a donation of more than AED 5 million from the proceeds of Vogue Fashion Dubai Experience. It was held in a ceremony at Dubai Mall (Emaar n.p.). Vogue Fashion Dubai Experience was one of the largest exhibitions ever in Dubai and was organized by Emaar Properties and Vogue Italia for raising funds for Dubai Cares. Dubai cares is a philanthropic institute which was founded by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. He is the VP and Prime Minister of UAE. The core aim of Dubai Cares has been to provide children in underdeveloped countries with direct access for high quality primary education and this effort of Dubai cares has reached across more than 8 million children and it has gone across more than developing countries across the world. These funds have elaborated the fact that the charity auction gala was an effort for eradication of adversity and for the betterment of society across the world. It was organized as part of Vogue Fashion Dubai Experience. The exhibition had welcomed more than 400,000 visitors across the globe and had presented a bright image of UAE as a social and philanthropic model. Conclusion Corporate social responsibility and stakeholder accountability are interlinked with each other. For corporations and individual managers, corporate social responsibility is a serious and critical issue. It is imperative of corporations to formulate effective and efficient business strategies and tactics and also must enable them in managing the pressure, regarding to the business fraternity. It’s a challenging task for a business to implement such strategies and to perform with consistency. Philanthropy will help companies to decide in what it stands for and can facilitate its customers References Constantelos, Demetrios J. Byzantine philanthropy and social welfare. New Rochelle, NY: AD Caratzas, 1991. Emaar. “Emaar presents AED 5 million, the proceeds from Vogue Fashion Dubai Experience, to Dubai Cares”(2013) http://www.emaar.com/index.aspx?page=press-release-details&id=1539 Porter, Michael E., and Mark R. Kramer, “The competitive advantage of corporate philanthropy." Harvard business review 80.12 (2002): 56-68. Smith, Craig. "The new corporate philanthropy." Harvard Business Review 72.3 (1994): 105-116. Read More