Europe-Wide Foundation and Corporate Platforms

European Foundation Centre (EFC) Initiatives

The EFC works on a number of projects to facilitate cooperation between foundations and companies. The EFC achieves this through the following initiatives:

Corporate Citizenship Europe interest group and Intermediaries network; and
Community Philanthropy Initiative.

Corporate Citizenship Europe Interest Group and Network

The EFC helps to facilitate corporate citizenship by promoting and underpinning good corporate citizenship and community investment practice through its Corporate Citizenship Europe (CCE) programme. This is achieved by encouraging networking and learning between foundations and corporations, assistance in local partner identification, and providing targeted information services to corporate members.

At the national level the CCE Intermediaries Network aims to promote and support the activities of intermediary organisations that provide a corporate philanthropy bridge between corporate citizens and citizens' associations that address community needs. The group was established following the completion of the three-year CCE Intermediaries project generously funded by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. Foundations involved in the network included the Charities Aid Foundation (UK), the Fondation de France (Fra) Fundação Luso-Americana para o Desenvolvimento (Por), the King Baudouin Foundation (Bel), the Open Estonia Foundation (Est), the Oranje Fonds (NL), the Stefan Batory Foundation ( Pol). Other network partners were P.E.C.-Parcerias Empresariais e Consultadoria (Por), SODALITAS (Ita), and the Czech Donors Forum.

The activities of these "intermediary organisations" in the field of corporate citizenship can relate to the following:

assistance and consultancy in developing corporate programmes and partnerships;
research and development to build the "business case" for corporate social responsibility: by conducting original opinion research about the changing role of enterprise in society (consumer perception, attitudes and expectations; company social communications); and by participating in national and international programmes to develop new management frameworks, methodologies and tools (social reporting, stakeholder dialogue, employee community involvement); and
diffusion of sustainability concepts through high level conferences and reference materials (corporate foundations, accountability and reporting, cause related marketing).

Community Philanthropy Initiative

The EFC member-led Community Philanthropy Initiative (CPI) promotes and sustains the development of community philanthropy organisations (cpos) in Europe. CPI provides networking, technical assistance and training opportunities for community foundations and other CPOs. One of its key activities is to reach out to corporate funders and companies, helping them link up with community philanthropy to help build stronger communities.

Companies and communities enjoy a dynamic and interdependent relation. Well-established and nurtured links with the community and environment increase assets from which companies can capitalise. Companies contribute to community development and improving the quality of life by creating employment opportunities, investment prospects, involvement in strengthening the infrastructure, tax revenues, and generating wealth. The community, on the other hand, provides the human and natural resources essential to operate a business; it is a competitive environment in which companies struggle to gain customers, resources, and profit. The cooperation among companies and communities is essential for balanced development of their interests and ambitions.

Community foundations (CFs) offer precious partnerships for businesses that seek to develop and implement a focused and effective corporate community investment strategy. CFs engage, together with support grant-maker organisations, in promoting, supporting and facilitating corporate community involvement -among both local and global corporations.
Details of CPI corporate work and examples of community foundations partnership projects with corporations active in the health, new technology, and food industry sectors are available at www.efc.be/projects/philanthropy/corporate_outreach.htm.

WINGS Corporate Initiative

Formally created in January 2000, the Worldwide Initiatives for Grantmaker Support (WINGS) is a global network of more than 100 membership associations and support organisations serving grantmakers, which have joined together to:

create opportunities to learn from and support one another;
develop modes of communication and collaboration among themselves; and
contribute to the strengthening of philanthropy worldwide.

WINGS-CI (corporate initiative) convenes organisations supporting the work of corporate grantmakers and promoting new corporate social investment. Some 30 associations and support organisations in the WINGS network promote corporate community investment and provide services to corporate grantmakers, six of which are based in Europe. Such services may include workshops and seminars, annual conferences, research, publications, and other special programmes to highlight the contributions of corporations and corporate giving programs to social investment. Details can be found on the Wings site at: www.wingsweb.org/programmes/wings-ci.cfm

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