Well-oiled programs see employers quickly helping out when disasters strike worldwide
When the news broke about the earthquake in Haiti on Jan. 12, Toyota Canada and Toyota Financial Services quickly decided to commit $35,000 to the Canadian Red Cross and match individual employee donations dollar for dollar.
Having responded to the China earthquake in 2008, the automaker was better prepared to react to the Haiti disaster, in finding out what the other Toyota affiliates in Canada were doing, gaining consent from the board of the Toyota Canada Foundation — which organizes corporate social responsibility activities and co-ordinates contributions — and understanding employee enthusiasm to help out the Haitian people.
The company’s president wrote a letter to workers informing them of the company’s decision and encouraging donations, and a follow-up note from HR, also posted on the company’s intranet site, told them how they could contribute.
It’s a very empowering experience to see the organization rally behind those in distress, said Sandy Di Felice, director of external affairs at Toyota Canada in Toronto.
“We recognize we are a global company and part of the global community,” she said.
And much of that wave of commitment comes from employees — decisions about disaster relief or other areas of the business are not exclusively from the top down but often from the ground up, she said.
When a disaster hits, there’s a kind of momentum that builds, said Vincent Power, associate vice-president of corporate communications at Sears Canada in Toronto. That’s largely what prompts Sears to get involved, as it did for the 1998 ice storm in Ontario and Quebec, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and Manitoba’s Red River flooding in 2009.
“Usually it’s fairly big and significant,” he said, and often the disaster involves people who are in less economically advantaged countries, as with Haiti. “There’s likely enough of that population of that heritage reflected in Canada that also compels us to get involved.”
The retailer is encouraging people to make donations in-store, online or through Sears’ toll-free number, to be directed to the Red Cross Haiti Appeal. Sears is collecting donations and sending them to the Red Cross by electronic funds transfer. That partnership will continue until the donations start to dwindle, said Power.
Generally the company works with the Red Cross, which has a good record for being at the centre of major crises and a good reputation for directing the money to the right place, said Power.
Also working with Red Cross Canada is ING Direct, which is encouraging online donations from employees and customers. When these devastating events happen, it’s amazing how the world can respond, said Peter Aceto, president and CEO of ING Direct, which also helped people suffering from the 2004 tsunami.
“Canadians are citizens of the world and we want to be involved and help people who are faultless victims of these types of circumstances,” he said. “Our employees and even our customers demand and expect and wish to be involved in giving back in our community.”
Getting the initiative up and running involved the HR and communications team, operations, information technology people and marketing. Being a technology company as well as a bank, ING could easily find a way to help people pool their efforts, he said.
“We were able to move particularly quickly this time because we had done it before.”
The same was true for LoyaltyOne, which is enabling Air Miles’ collectors to donate their reward miles to help with relief efforts in Haiti. In addition, it is co-ordinating an employee donation program.
“When there’s something that has a large impact like that, which would have a high profile with the Canadian population, we reach out and do that not only through our associate base but out to the marketplace,” said Bryan Pearson, president of LoyaltyOne, owner and operator of the Air Miles Reward Program.
In responding to the tsunami disaster, Air Miles ran the disaster relief offer for two months and raised $90,000. For Haiti, after just a few days, $138,000 has been donated, he said.
“It’s certainly resonant,” said Pearson, citing Canada’s large Haitian community and the fact more Canadians are affected. “The level of the disaster is pretty profound and it’s registering.”
How much is too much?
As to the company’s matching donations for this latest relief effort, Air Miles is still assessing, said Pearson.
“It’s always a question of budgets and capability and everything else that’s there.”
The company thought it was more important to get the funds flowing, and be a facilitator of the transaction, before it decided — but it will make a corporate donation of some form, he said.
It’s early in the year and Air Miles has just finished doing a significant match with the CP24/Chum City Christmas Wish, along with donating to Air Miles’ regular charities Kids’ Help Phone, the Canadian Special Olympics and the World Wildlife Fund, he said.
“These are enduring relationships — what we don’t want to do is end up pushing dollars into this facility and be short for commitments we made to longstanding partnerships. That’s the business challenge.”
Usually Sears provides a corporate contribution but often it also does a match because that might entice more people to give, said Power. At the end of the relief effort, the company might make a public statement about how much it has collected but is careful not to make it a competition with other businesses.
“We’re not trying to be the only ones or the best. There’s room for abundance here.”
Generally Toyota knows from its associate base, within a range, what the likely contribution overall is going to be, said Di Felice, but it doesn’t cap how much it will match.
ING likes to keep things really simple, without rules that make it complicated, said Aceto. If the process is confusing, it causes questions and people are not so quick to donate. If, for example, the company was to match only individual donations of $75 or more, that would mean it wouldn’t match 50 per cent of employees.
“That really doesn’t seem logical for us. Our business had a good 2009 in tough times so we have the luxury we can continue to give.”
However, ING also has other charitable priorities, such as the Children’s Wish Foundation, so it has said it will match donations up to $50,000, until Feb. 12. In the first few days, $250,000 had already been contributed.
Engaging employees
“Engagement for us is very, very important and things like this (Haiti relief) really contribute,” said Aceto. “This will help with what our employees will think of us.”
Taking this kind of approach can spark Sears’ employees to do things individually, such as collecting materials at work to send to the people of Haiti, said Power. And there is no resentment from employees when it comes to requests for donations, he said.
“Employees feel the more we can do, the better,” he said. “When they’re big, global things like this, our employees are proud their company has entered into the fundraising arena and looked for ways to participate and make the company successful in that.”
Fatigue around such requests is always a risk, said Pearson.
“You don’t want to overwhelm the staff with, every second moment, they’re being pursued for something or other.”
But this kind of giving is absolutely appreciated, according to engagement surveys, he said. As Air Miles increases the opportunities for employees to participate in activities, it sees a dramatic improvement in the satisfaction level and positive scores with the fact the company gives back. And, in turn, engagement scores rise as well.
“As people are evaluating organizations they want to work for, understanding how they support the communities they’re in and how giving back is part of the social fabric of the organization seems to be an ever-increasingly important part of the assessment that individuals make,” said Pearson.
