Many companies use Community Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives ranging from small sponsorships or programs to funding entire initiatives themselves. CSR’s are mainly used to gain positive press and publicity. Sometimes this is not the case and cause some groups to disagree with your initiative. For this assignment the CSR initiatives that will be looked at are; McDonald’s’ Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC), and A&W’s use of hormones and steroids, rather its lack thereof, in its products.
McDonald’s is an American fast-food company founded in San Bernardino, California in 1940.
It has grown to become one of the most recognized businesses worldwide with locations in over 100 hundred countries. In 1974, Philadelphia Eagles member Fred Hill’s daughter became sick and was diagnosed with Leukemia, he and his family found themselves out of a place to live while she received treatment at the hospital (Forbes, 2013).
With support he was able to raise funds for a place to stay for families struggling with sick children in the hospital (Forbes, 2013). Reaching out for more support fast food giant McDonald’s agreed with its name being added to the charity. Ronald McDonald House Charities was then formed and would continue to grow to more than 64 different countries in 2018 (RMHC, n.d.).
Ronald McDonald House Charities has four initiates to its CSR approach. These initiates include Ronald McDonald Houses which are homes built to provide support and resources to families in need to help keep them together. Ronald McDonald Family Rooms located inside of hospitals to provide a safe place for families to rest and recoup together.
Ronald McDonald Care Mobiles which is mobile healthcare units that comes directly to children who need it. Lastly, grants to help sponsor and support children in health care need worldwide (RMHC n.d.). Stakeholders involved in the Ronald McDonald House Charities operations include McDonald’s shareholders and customers. Shareholders are involved when McDonald’s offers special promotions such as McHappy Day when a percentage of each meal sold goes directly to RMHC. Customers are involved because their purchasing power of how much they buy during these special events directly relates to how much money is donated. Direct donors are another stakeholder because majority of the funds received at RMHC come from these individuals. Doctors and nurses who are located in the hospitals and care units that provide the medical treatment to sick children are another stakeholders. Without these people providing the medical expertise this organization would not be able to exist. Lastly, construction workers, building planners and volunteers that help build the Ronald McDonald Houses are included in stakeholders at RMHC.
Factors that can potentially get in the way of the initiative succeeding is lack of community involvement and lack of support from the public health sector. In a case study in Norway relating to the development of an RMHC facility, many members of the local community were opposed to the idea. The belief of healthcare providers including doctors thought that a private sector company should have no role of involvement when it comes to the public sector of healthcare (Bronn, 2006). They only agreed to the idea being implemented if RMHC could not be involved in the running of the facility (Bronn, 2006). Another reason for them being against the initiative is that “McDonald’s is the worst example of a firm with which a public hospital should have an alliance” (Bronn, 2006). This is thought because McDonald’s food products have been proven to be unhealthy, cause obesity, and are associated with an inactive lifestyle (Bronn, 2006). Being a CSR that is aimed to help sick children and families in need is contradictive when the products that McDonald’s is known to sell cause health problems in individuals who eat it regularly. Another group that seems to be against the idea of RMHC CSR is the shareholders of McDonald’s. Very minimal of net profits that the company earns each year is actually donated towards RMHC. This can be seen in 2011 when out of $5.5 billion earned in net profit, only $34 million was donated directly from the company, which is less than .08% (Forbes, 2013). Customers donated close to 1.5 times more than McDonald’s at $50 million in 2011 (Forbes, 2013). With McDonald’s only donating a very tiny portion of its profit towards its CSR, it can be seen shareholder profits are far more important to the business than how much it claims RMHC is.
A&W is a burger chain based out of California that advertises its meat as having no added hormones or steroids. The company has over 35,000 employees as well as over 800 locations in Canada. Recent marketing has been focused on them not adding hormones or steroids to any of its meat, which A&W says makes it more natural. However, this marketing does not excite nearly everyone as groups like farmers have begun boycotting A&W for its practices of keeping its meat more natural.
The second CSR is A&W’s no hormone or steroid meat which it uses to sell its meat as more natural and better for the consumers and animals. Since the start of this program sales for A&W have grown by 7.6% (Haney S, 2016) so clearly customers enjoy having more natural beef. While the A&W no hormones and no steroids tagline may seem good for its consumers, in actuality it makes no difference on the health of the consumer or animal and could lead to a worse hunger crisis. When A&W unveiled its new tagline of no added hormones or steroids, it was expecting that consumers would be happier knowing that the food they are eating is natural and the animals are being treated better. On the contrary to this, many farmers have become outraged at these practices and decided to boycott A&W. The article by Andrew Campbell shares the opinion that many of these farmers and says that A&W is “clearly only interested in selling a few more hamburgers because of fear”, (Campbell, 2013). Andrew sells A&W’s initiative as fear mongering scaring people into buying its burgers because they do not know better. Andrew also has a point that a small hormone injection onto its cows will tremendous ecological impacts. It is important to note that not all farmers are against A&W as it is still being supplied with beef from farmers. The majority of customers still remain unaware of the implications of no hormone beef and think that A&W burgers are better for them and the animals.
A&W’s no hormones or steroids beef does have many negatives, however, there are still reasons that a stakeholder like farmers would work with them. Although there are many ecological drawbacks to not using these hormones, the fact that they are willing to do it at all means that they care about what is in its food and the quality of life of the animals they use in its food. A&W’s CSR could be seen as a response to all the negative press thrown against McDonald’s for its use of slaughterhouses, so having a company committed to taking care of its animals despite all the criticism it has amassed is good news.
To conclude, CSRs may look good on the surface but behind the scenes there may be a difference of opinions. This is the case with CSR initiatives as well. CSR may seem all good on the outside but when you look into them a little deeper, they are usually not all great and have hidden negative points. In the examples of the Ronald McDonald House Charities, many people do not like the fact that McDonald’s only contributes a very small portion of its revenue to a charity with its name on it. McDonald’s in this CSR are taking a defensive approach, by only doing what they need to do and no more. As for A&W, many farmers are boycotting fast-food restaurants because they are using meat with no steroids and no hormones. A&W are taking an accommodative approach to the CSR initiative in that they do not have to change its products, but are doing so anyway, despite the negative feedback from some stakeholder groups.
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