Changing Trends: Philanthropy and Strategic Philanthropy

CSR commenced with Philanthropy addressing social development issues which
primarily were driven with religious sentiments, family traditions and
voluntary contributions driven by personal motives. With change in the business
environment and increase in FDIs in the liberalization period, the Philanthropy
started getting integrated into strategic thinking. Few corporate leaders
wanted to make it sure that they get tangible and intangible results from the
investments they made for social developments in the form of tax returns,
customer loyalty, develop rural markets and so on. Companies realized that
merely by just being good and donating a lot of money. In the new market
economy this arrangement is not sustainable in the long-run, and shareholders
will quickly lose interest of their money does not give them tangible results.
Companies realized that corporate success depends not in altruistic CSR but development
of the local environment through developing appropriate infrastructure,
designing the right types and quality of education to future employees,
co-operation with local suppliers, and development of quality institutions and
so on. These types of initiative developed with NGO and government partnership
can have great impact which will be beneficial for the company but also for the
local society.

In the new millennium because of increased globalization and competitiveness there is
consistent transformation in the CSR practices for developing corporate
sustainability through balancing stakeholders interest. CSR today is basically
linked to the boarded issues of corporate governance. The company board is
required to focus on the company’s obligation and duties towards its
stakeholder. They are now looking at performance in non-financial areas such as
human rights, business ethics, environmental policies, corporate contributions,
community development, corporate governance and workplace issues. Leadership
companies which align business and social goals evaluate their company’s
performance by incorporating triple bottom line performance that includes
social, environmental and financial performance.