Article published in Businessline May 05,2008 in the section called "The New Manager"
Give from the heart
Charity must come from the heart, not just the pocket
To fulfil their corporate social responsibility, companies need each one of their people to understand and assimilate the concept of giving back. After all, a company’s heart is its people. A set of socially responsible individuals is the most important ingredient in a company aspiring to present itself as socially responsible. Is Charity the answer?
Many famous and not so famous people assuage their conscience by associating with events and galas presumably as a charitable gesture. They are visible at fashion extravaganzas, dance performances, music concerts and all kinds of events, all in the name of charity. I understand that people sometimes do this in order to highlight certain causes. Mohammed Yunus, founder of the Nobel Prize winning Grameen Bank, however says: “What all these pop stars and politicians want is the usual recipe: charity. But charity is not the way to help people in need; it is not a healthy basis for a relationship between people.”Categorising charity
Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon was a 12th century Jewish scholar and physician who wrote a code of Jewish law in which he organised the different levels of charity (called tzedakah) into a list from the least to the most honourable. The lowest forms are:
Donations that are given grudgingly. For example, schools send out notices about their efforts to collect money for disaster relief. Some parents then give because of the perceived pressure that such notices bring.
Giving directly to the poor on being asked. This often happens when some people come with their receipt books and ask for donations for the disabled, refugees, old age homes and so on. The highest form of charity according to this code is one that helps to help sustain a person before they become impoverished. This is the most unfashionable way of providing charity and can be done by offering a substantial gift in a dignified manner, by extending a suitable loan, by helping people find employment or establish themselves in business or any other way as well. This makes it possible for them to become financially independent. In a spontaneous show of generosity after the tsunami of 2004, people flocked to give their old and tattered clothes and used the occasion to clear up their clutter to such a degree that some aid agencies had to ask them to stop such ‘contributions’. We need to contribute in accordance with the needs of the recipients, the caretakers/aid workers and work in harmony with them. They are in the best position to judge this. We cannot expect them to be happy with just random items that we give them. Charity Time
Many corporations have trusts that are not for profit and are involved in improving the lives of the under-privileged.
Nevertheless, to touch more lives, companies should focus on ‘charity time’ spent by their people, in addition to setting aside sums of money to be spent on charitable causes. President Jimmy Carter builds houses with his own hands under the umbrella of an organisation called Habitat for Humanity. Mohammed Yunus set out on an unfashionable and difficult path by turning charity into a partnership rather than a throw away gift. There are numerous such organisations, albeit not as famous, which are led by eminent professionals. Companies should lend their people for 6-12 months to these dedicated organisations which can harness this resource effectively. People on the bench can be used in a truly noble manner if there is a partnership between profit making corporations and these non-profit entities. When I was in college, we had a National Social Service scheme. We got extra marks for being involved in it. It even counted towards cut-offs for entrance exams. Public sector banks have a rural posting requirement. To have an even distribution of services, officers had to serve in a rural area if they wanted to get promotions. While the implementation of these ideas is riddled with gaping holes, the direction is right. Companies can institutionalise this aspect by giving visible credit for social involvement. Social awareness and willingness to give can be as important a factor as a degree from a premier institute,Straight from the heart
Merely giving things does not constitute charity. Most young people feel more empowered by giving their time to charity rather than their money, which is quite limited at that age, and they probably achieve more than those who simply give away things. Bob Hope, one of the best-known Hollywood comics, said, “If you haven’t any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble.” Charity has to come from the heart, not just the pocket.

Article published in Businessline, a business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications, on Jul 17, 2006

A case for individual social responsibility
Gayatri Krishnamurthy
Instead of CSR, companies should encourage individual social responsibility of stakeholders
Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR is the latest buzzword and the in-thing. However, big corporates are only a bunch of shareholders and as a minuscule holder of shares, I would like publicly listed companies to give me the money spent on CSR so I can decide what to do with it. I have an ally in Milton Friedman, the renowned economist, who argued that a company's principal purpose is to maximise returns to shareholders while obeying the laws of the land. If CSR is instrumental in retaining talent and creates a distinct customer preference for companies with a social conscience, I will give it a big `thumbs up'. Otherwise, shareholders should be free to take their money and support the causes they deem fit.
I support an organisation for the disabled. At the beginning of last year, I got a call from them asking for some urgent monetary help. The reason was that the regular corporate donors preferred to give their yearly dole to tsunami-related charities. It is my individual social responsibility that helped the organisation stay afloat. It is this `individual social responsibility' that companies should foster. Unless there is a consensus among shareholders about their commitment to certain causes, companies should focus on the main purpose of their existence: maximising returns for stakeholders
Charity is tough work
Warren Buffett is one of the richest people in the world, with an estimated current net worth of $42 billion. With his announcement that he is giving away 85 per cent of his fortune to charity, he has, with one stroke, become arguably the most charitable person as well. He is shrewd and far-sighted. The time it took him to decide how and whom to give to was considerably longer than the time it took to make the decision on where to invest.
I have prided myself on being charitable in a practical way. I was outside a bakery and an old, impoverished looking old woman came begging. It was lunchtime and I told her that I would foot the bill for whatever she wanted at the bakery. She walked away in a huff, cursing me for not giving cash. I was told later that she was quite well off and used the money she got to lend to the poorest of poor at a `back breakingly' high rate. It is quite a dilemma to select a cause and charity that actually does good.
I believe that having more than you need has to do with many factors, and quite a few of these are not under our control. As a mark of respect to our good fortune, we should give back. The noblest way to do this would be to do it ourselves by becoming a grassroots social worker. The other, more comfortable way is to finance people who do such work.
Twelve cents out of a dollar dilemma
When we were in the US more than 15 years ago, we gave to a children's charity and were very happy that we had done our bit. We were assigned specific children and given progress reports on them. After a few years, that turned into a bit of unhappiness because a leading newspaper ran a story saying that out of every dollar we gave, only 12 cents went to the child. There were insinuations, but no proof of mishandling. That could happen to you as well. When a charity starts out, a bulk of the money will go towards the set up itself. Then as the scale expands, the percentage trickling down will be more. After some time, every dollar extra will go to the bottomline that in this case was the child. When one gives instead of doing, there will be intermediary costs that one should be willing to bear. Now, there are organisations that assist us in choosing charities by doing background checks on the charities.
How to choose a cause
Every person of some wealth is familiar with the multiple requests for charity that far exceed the total wealth. A charity should be evaluated in the same way that a wise investor looks at a stock. The bottom line here is the contribution made to real upliftment, instead of monetary returns. The business model should be good and scalable, and it should have good management and corporate governance. Charitable organisations now have Web sites and contact details from which one can obtain information as well.
Charity, of course, begins at home. I end with a famous comment from the `Oracle of Omaha', Warren Buffett, which is an excellent parenting tip, as well, "I want to give my kids enough so that they could feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing." As for me, I plan to keep enough so that I will have a comfortable and hopefully unpretentious lifestyle, and after that it is off to do some really hard work and give away the rest. One day individual social responsibility will be on every one's lips.