Discuss about the Overview of Corporate Philanthropy for Crown.
The act of a business or a corporation which promotes the wellbeing of others is known as Corporate Philanthropy. Such acts are usually done by the means of charitable donations of time and funds (Ehrlich, 2013). More and more organizations are taking part in philanthropic acts by increasing the amount of donations to the charities, as well as, to the nonprofit organizations. This has made the concept of Corporate Philanthropy a hot topic. In the following parts, a discussion has been carried over the various definitions of Corporate Philanthropy and an analysis has been carried regarding the existing literature on it. Further, a company has been chosen, Crown, and the Corporate Philanthropy program of the company has been detailed. Lastly, a link has been established between the activities of Crown and the literate available on Corporate Philanthropy.
Corporate philanthropy is related to the executive side of the management where the senior members of the company make decisions regarding the delegation of grants or funds for the philanthropic purposes. Corporate philanthropy is bigger than the individual philanthropy, as the companies have higher capacities, as compared to an individual (Scott, 2012).
As per the recent literature on corporate philanthropy, this concept is facing a downwards turn. The charitable contributions have fallen during the last 15 years (Porter and Kramer, 2002). The reason behind this decline is that the senior management is often caught between the demand of higher levels of corporate social responsibility and the investors’ pressure to maximize the profits. No matter how much a corporate donates, the critics demand more. This has led to creation of strategies regarding the philanthropy.
It is often argued that corporate philanthropy does not yield the tangible results to the companies, and yet the companies adopt it as a corporate strategy to attain significant returns for the company. Corporate philanthropy is not merely the charitable donations but includes expert advice, technological support, employee volunteers as well as long term commitments which are targeted towards the social problems (Vaidyanathan, 2008). Further, in the growing competitive world, a lack of social investments would harm the society, which is dependent on such activities. Also, these activities act as a reputational capital which helps an organization in creating goodwill (Levy, 1999). So, it can be concluded from these literatures that corporate philanthropy is crucial to not only the benefiters of such activities, but also to the management.
The various literatures on this topic find that the corporate indulge in the activities of corporate philanthropy to not only attain and retain customers but also to attract shareholders and maximize the shareholder value. Further, such studies dictate that larger companies are more likely to indulge in such activities, as they are subjected to a high degree of public scrutiny (Brammer, Pavelin and Porter, 2008). A global analysis has revealed the importance of domestic cultural factors in the worldwide social responsiveness of the international companies.
Crown Resorts Limited, or Crown, is one of the largest entertainment groups in Australia. The core activities and investments of the group are in the sector of integrated resorts. In Australia, Crown is the owner and operator of two of the country’s leading integrated resorts, Crown Perth Entertainment Complex and Crown Melbourne Entertainment Complex. In London, Crown is the owner and operator of Crown Aspinall’s. The company holds a substantial interest in the MCE (Melco Crown Entertainment Limited) which is listed on the NSADAQ. MCE operates casinos and hotel properties in Macau and this includes the Altira Macau and the City of Dreams along with the Mocha Clubs business (Crown, 2013). The Crown Resort Foundation, which is a part of the company, makes various grants towards the community welfare, arts, health care, environment and the education.
Crown Resorts along with the Packer Family Foundations’ have started a National Philanthropic Fund. In the first year of its 10 year journey, the fund aims to provide $200 million of funding to the communities in Australia. The National Philanthropic Fund would be administered via two different funds, the $100 million National Arts Fund and the $100 million Community Partnerships and Indigenous Education Fund. An important element of the National Arts Fund is the $30 million Western Sydney Arts Initiative. In the very first year of this initiative, the selected 30 programs have reached many students, and as a result engaged more than 100 schools, and 65 arts and community organizations. Such programs would enhance the art capacity of Western Sydney and would engage the Australians into education by use of art as a medium.
The Indigenous Education Fund and the Community Partnerships provide the necessary financial support to the crucial community organizations. A special emphasis in this regard is given to the empowerment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders by the medium of education. Crown is focused on the community approach so as to formulate an environment of trust and security in the children. Further, the children would also benefit from a proper school based education system. The company has provided 6 new multiyear grants to the Indigenous education organizations. Crown Resorts Foundation is contributing to the amount of $100 million in the National Philanthropic Fund (Crown Resorts, 2015).
This initiative of the Company has been reported by Probono Australia. The full structure of the fund has been explained in this report (Staff Reporter, 2014). The National Philanthropic Fund and its various programs were also covered by the ABC News. This report covered the positive review of the Fund by the receivers of the benefits, which resulted from this fund. MTC or the Melbourne Theatre Company was the first beneficiary and the executive director of MTC regarded it as a great initiative (ABC News, 2014). Favorable reports with regards to the fund were also reported in the Daily Telegraph. This report also focused on the history of Packer family which has been constantly engaged in charitable causes by donating millions to not-for-profit organizations. This report also covered the segment where the Philanthropy Australia chief executive, Louise Walsh, expected that the bigheartedness of the Crown Resorts would persuade the other corporate boards to donate wards philanthropic activities. He also expected to see some huge gifting process in the country and he considered it as fantastic (Lehman, 2014).
In the recent literature on Corporate Philanthropy, it has been said that the trend of this concept is on decline (Weeden, 2011). But linking the literature to the initiatives of Crown proves another story. Crown has started new initiatives towards Corporate Philanthropy by starting a huge fund in collaboration with another group. This Fund is the proof that the top management is still indulged in the activities relating to philanthropy. And it has been done rightly, as the company has received a lot of media coverage, as a result of this initiative. Apart from the media coverage, Crown has received positive feedbacks from not only the beneficiaries of the fund, but also from the general public in terms of better public image.
The literatures have rightly covered that the corporate philanthropy does not only cover the charitable donations but includes expert advice, technological support, employee volunteers as well as long term commitments which are targeted towards the social problems. And as held in the literatures, the domestic factors do impact the type of initiatives taken by the companies with regards to philanthropy. The National Philanthropic Fund of Crown is purely based on these initiatives towards the betterment of the community. This fund not only covered monetary donations but also contained the help to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, as well as towards the Western Sydney Arts Initiative. Australia has been facing problems relating to the indigenous population and the initiatives of Crown are focused on this population. The fund also focused on inculcating better education in children to help them grow in a better manner. So, even though the literature says that corporate philanthropy does not yield the tangible results to the companies but still Crown has adopted it as a corporate strategy to attain significant returns by benefiting the society.
From the above analysis, it can be concluded that corporate philanthropy is an integral part of businesses in the present age. Even with the recent decline in the practices of corporate philanthropy, the organizations are still working in this regard. The importance of corporate philanthropy has not dampened by the unstoppable demands of the critics. The corporates have identified the importance of philanthropy to the society and the level of dependency on such activities. This has focused them to continue the good work in this regard. The benefits may not be in terms of short term profits, but in the long run, a responsible business is more likely to be preferred by the consumers, as compared to a business which is not indulged in such activities. Lastly, the domestic factors in Australia relating to the indigenous population have been focused by the company in its philanthropic initiatives. So, it can be rightly concluded that the corporate philanthropy in Australia, matches the various literatures available on the topic of corporate philanthropy.
References
ABC News. (2014) James Packer launches $200 million philanthropic fund to support arts and Indigenous education. [Online] ABC News. Available from: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-22/packers-launch-200m-national-philanthropic-fund/5614840 [Accessed on: 21/09/16]
Brammer, S.J., Pavelin, S., and Porter, L.A. (2008) Corporate charitable giving, multinational companies and countries of concern. [Online] Henley Business School. Available from: https://www.henley.ac.uk/web/files/management/061.pdf [Accessed on: 21/09/16]
Crown Resorts. (2015) Crown Resorts and Packer Family Foundations’ National Philanthropic Fund Annual Review 2015. [Online] Crown Resorts. Available from: https://www.crownresorts.com.au/CrownResorts/files/c6/c68a8a1e-cda3-4be4-904b-9191a99d7021.pdf [Accessed on: 21/09/16]
Crown. (2013) About Us. [Online] Crown. Available from: https://www.crownresorts.com.au/about-us/crown [Accessed on: 21/09/16]
Ehrlich, E. (2013) Defining Corporate Philanthropy. [Online] Double the Donation. Available from: https://doublethedonation.com/blog/2013/09/defining-corporate-philanthropy/ [Accessed on: 21/09/16]
Lehman, J. (2014) James Packer’s gift to Australia: Crown Resorts will pump 0 million into charities over the next ten years. [Online] The Daily Telegraph. Available from: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/james-packers-gift-to-australia-crown-resorts-will-pump-200-million-into-charities-over-the-next-ten-years/news-story/cdbbbfbade8ef6df0a1acc8f54ed0075 [Accessed on: 21/09/16]
Levy, R. (1999) Give and Take: A Candid Account of Corporate Philanthropy. Massachusetts: Harvard Business School Press.
Porter, M.E., and Kramer, M.R. (2002) The Competitive Advantage of Corporate Philanthropy. [Online] Harvard Business Review. Available from: https://hbr.org/2002/12/the-competitive-advantage-of-corporate-philanthropy [Accessed on: 21/09/16]
Scott, R. (2012) Corporate Philanthropy Definition – Volunteer and Fundraising Edition. [Online] Causecast. Available from: https://www.causecast.com/blog/corporate-philanthropy-definition-volunteer-and-fundraising-edition [Accessed on: 21/09/16]
Staff Reporter. (2014) Packer Family Pledges $200M Philanthropic Fund. [Online] Probono Australia. Available from: https://probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2014/07/packer-family-pledges-200m-philanthropic-fund/ [Accessed on: 21/09/16]
Vaidyanathan, B. (2008) Corporate Giving: A Literature Review. [Online] Science of Generosity. Available from: https://generosityresearch.nd.edu/assets/11795/corporate_giving.pdf [Accessed on: 21/09/16]
Weeden, C. (2011) Smart Giving Is Good Business: How Corporate Philanthropy Can Benefit Your Company and Society. US: Jossey-Bass
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