Giving Compass' Take:

• A recent conference for European Corporate Foundations focused on how corporations are aligning their values with their foundations to engage in social impact work. 

• What are examples of U.S. companies aligning their goals with their foundation's missions? 

• Learn more about how to make business goals become social goals.

The debate about corporations and their foundations as genuine agents of change is a key one for our times. I recently attended a conference for European Corporate Foundations in Munich organised by the European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA) and the Donor And Foundation Network for Europe (DAFNE) to learn from different models and approaches on the continent.

There are a huge range of Corporate Foundations with a wide diversity in how they work with their corporate partners. To understand this, the EVPA have created a typology on how Foundations work with their Corporate partners from those who are ‘instrumentally aligned’ to those who are ‘industry or business aligned’.

At the ‘business aligned’ end, we heard from the Syngenta Foundation helping small farmers in the developing world to increase their profits through extending science-based know-how drawn from its parent company Syngenta. This helps people living in rural communities and boost sustainably.

Representing the ‘Industry alignment’ model was the C&A Foundation who seek to address labour and environmental issues in the supply chain of cheap clothes manufactured in the developing world for wealthy consumers in the West.

This isn’t easy to get right. Some might see these relationships as ‘greenwashing’ – masking unpalatable Corporate actions. But at their best, they facilitate a level of leverage and impact which no small foundation could get near.

If there is one lesson to take home from this conference, it’s that corporations have a role to play in civil society and, by aligning with the goals and values of their foundations, can help make change happen and tackle some of society’s complex social issues.

Read the full article about corporations aligned with foundation values by Paul Streets at Alliance Magazine.