Category Archives: Corporate philanthropy

What’s the point of corporate philanthropy?

This essay was first published by Ethical Corporation magazine.  Climbing Borneo’s Mount Kinabalu is hard work. Climbers are legally required to hire a guide. Not that it always helps: guides sometimes just abandon the tourists and climb with each other. … Continue reading

Posted in Corporate philanthropy, Effective giving | Leave a comment

Goldman Sachs doesn’t (appear to) understand stats. Who are the muppets now?

This article first appeared in Third Sector magazine.  The legendary investment bank Goldman Sachs was described by Rolling Stone magazine two years ago as being “like a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity”; and a former executive who resigned … Continue reading

Posted in Corporate philanthropy, Impact & evaluation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Corporate giving: philanthropy without the money

This article first appeared in The Guardian’s Sustainable Business section. Companies using their assets to create change can have a far more effective impact than by simply giving cash If you search on Google in the UK for “suicide”, you’ll … Continue reading

Posted in Corporate philanthropy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

NatWest’s Community Force programme is crushingly awful

NatWest’s Community Force programme creates huge amounts of waste for charities and doesn’t even reward merit. It’s the worst programme for giving money to charity I’ve ever seen. Here are the larger of my concerns about it: It’s massively wasteful  NatWest has … Continue reading

Posted in Corporate philanthropy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

Why Eurostar’s charity partnership with the Ashden Awards is a very good idea*

Partnering to create value  Interested in fostering innovation, Eurostar has teamed up with the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy to create a new prize for local sustainable transport initiatives. In principle, Eurostar could have created an infrastructure of its own – … Continue reading

Posted in Corporate philanthropy, Effective giving, Mergers | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Understanding impact of a corporate giving programme

Giving Evidence is currently evaluating the ‘community projects’ programme of the Guardian News & Media group (i.e., the series of ~12 partnerships which GNM has with voluntary organisations near its London HQ). In this article in the Guardian, I explain … Continue reading

Posted in Corporate philanthropy, Impact & evaluation | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment