The Principles Our Program is Based on

 

The National Mentoring Program is based on the eight new economic realities the 2008 economy is driving: 

  1. The more closely a company’s philanthropy is linked to its competitive context, the greater the company’s contribution to society will be. Because companies do not function in isolation from the society around them, improving that society leads to increased competitiveness and productivity for individual companies (or clusters).
  2. By focusing on contextual conditions most important to them, companies can use their own resources and relationships to help grantees be more effective at creating social impact. Both the companies and the causes they support benefit.
  3. Given that policy offers an indication of the destination of philanthropic expenditures, our consulting analysis investigates whether/how firms manage their philanthropy and how this policy affects their reputations.
  4. Corporate reputation is the collective opinion of an organization held by its stakeholders.
  5. A firm’s reputation is related to the signals that publics (inside the organization as well as outside) have received, whether directly from the company or via other information channels such as the media or stock markets concerning its behaviours and the congruence between a corporation’s behaviour and the preference of those publics. Our research enables philanthropy to play a significant role in establishing and developing favourable relationships with those publics.
  6. Firms that involve employees in their philanthropy activities have better reputations. The National Mentoring Program is designed to include employees in philanthropy, increasing reputation.
  7. Media are important because the media act as agenda setters and not merely as mediators in the relationships between companies and stakeholders. Media coverage influences the preferences of the populace and helps set the public opinion of the firm — The National Mentoring Program, along with our research and consulting practices are designed to increase media presence and create congruencies between a company and its publics.
  8. Strategic giving is defined as charitable efforts to improve a company’s competitive context; the quality of the business environment in which it operates.    . 

These principles are adapted from:

  • Michael E. Porter, and Mark R. Kramer in the Harvard Business Review, December 2002
  • Stephen Brammer and Andrew Millington in the Journal of Business Ethics in 2005. 
   
 
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