The calls come every day – charitable groups and agencies seeking financial help or other forms of support.

Often companies do help. If for no other reason it’s altruistic and nice to contribute money to a good cause, or volunteer time at the local food bank.

Too frequently, however, companies don’t keep track of the good deeds they and their employees perform. Nor do they understand the potential value to their business, says Sheila Carruthers, a leading proponent of corporate social responsibility.

“A lot of companies, small and medium-sized enterprises in particular, take a scatter-gun approach,” she says.

But rather than trying to please everyone, Carruthers suggests that companies take a focused, strategic approach. She urges businesses to determine what they stand for, state it clearly, and engage its managers and employees in the program or programs they choose to support.

Sheila Carruthers

Later this month Carruthers will hold a workshop in Calgary that examines the strategies and the tools available to companies that want to “Look Good by Doing Good.”

It’s a way of bridging the gap between business and community organizations, says Carruthers, who this year formed her own business, CSR Strategies Inc.

Her business has evolved from a decade of hands-on work with two major charitable foundations.

She cut her teeth in Montreal working at the private charitable foundation of businessman and philanthropist Charles Bronfman and his immediate family. Later, Carruthers managed the Canadian Pacific Charitable Foundation.

In her final year at CP she presided over a pot of charitable funds that totalled more than $10 million.
Carruthers moved to Calgary in the late 1990s when the company and its subsidiary, CP Rail, relocated. Last year when CP’s five business divisions were spun into separate entities, she hung out her own shingle.

It was at Canadian Pacific where she began to measure the value of corporate social responsibility because people (implicitly or spoken) wanted to know what they were getting “for all that money I was spending.”

When applicable there are charitable tax receipts and perhaps positive media coverage, she explains.

But the intangibles are harder to measure:

* How does a company value the smile on the face of an underprivileged kid when they’ve been taken to an Oilers or Flames game?

* Can a company measure the enhanced relationship that a top manager and key client create when they work on a community project together?

* What dollar amount is attached to the sense of teamwork developed when staff throw their heart and energy behind a community project?

“I wanted to prove that there was huge value. But the
problem was that no one was seeing it as closely as I was because I was the one working on the projects,” says Carruthers.

“That’s why we created champions for each project within the company. The champion is able to explain what the
benefits are to the community, but also the benefits in relation to growth in the company.”

As part of her workshop, she warns of pitfalls. Whether a company is made up of five people or 2,000, they must be diligent about whom they partner with. Charitable groups must do likewise.

“Everyone’s reputation is at stake,” says Carruthers,
noting that across Canada, a daunting 80,000 registered charities exist and more than 150,000 not-for-profit societies.

She explains that the best partnerships take time, that both sides must be clear on their objectives and that accountability is essential. As an example, she says it’s not uncommon to sign agreements as to what each
partner will do and specify exactly where money will be directed.

At CP, Carruthers recalls that it took a year to develop an Adopt-A-Shelter program between the Fairmont Hotels division (formerly CP Hotels) and the Canadian Women’s Foundation.

With the guidance of the foundation, each hotel autonomously supports shelters (second-stage housing programs for battered women and their children) and staff have rallied around the program phenomenally, she says.

She also uses the shelter program as a case that highlights another difficult issue. Should companies blow their own horn about noble activities in which they are involved?
No one wants to be perceived of as crass, and it’s a grey area companies dare not enter.

Delta Hotels raised the issue when Fairmont acquired the chain in 1998. Delta fully supported the idea of
joining the national Adopt-a-Shelter program, but didn’t want publicity.

“They questioned why we had to hold a public launch, put out news releases,” recalls Carruthers.

But as they discussed the issue, noting 96,000 women and children sought refuge in 1999/2000, Delta agreed that it was appropriate for the company to take a public position.

“It was OK for the company to say that domestic violence is not acceptable and that something has to be done,” says Carruthers, adding that money is also funnelled into a national education program.


Delta’s hesitation about seeking publicity isn’t new. In the past philanthropists and companies often kept quiet about their activities. They didn’t have to be as strategic about their charitable affairs because people knew which company was being corporately responsible.

“Today there is an expectancy,” she says. “These days, everyone wants to know what you are doing.

“If you are in a business and want to be seen to be doing good things, you have to be able to articulate it.”

And to be able to articulate matters, it’s important to track everything a company does.

Whether a company writes a cheque for $100 or lets an employee slip out of work early to volunteer at the local shelter, it all adds up, says Carruthers. And that’s good for business.