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Businesses fret over tackling the symptoms not the causes, and how to pick emergencies their staff care about
By Katie Nguyen
What keeps corporate donors awake at night? What are their priorities in these times of economic hardship and multiplying humanitarian emergencies?
Representatives from Barclays, Toyota, Standard Chartered and Virgin, among others, were invited to a breakfast briefing by the British Red Cross this week. Over coffee, croissants and bacon butties, they heard about the charity's work in Japan, Ivory Coast, Libya and East Africa from its international director David Peppiatt, while Mark Astarita, head of fundraising, gave it the hard sell.
"This is the biggest charity in the world by a million miles," Astarita said. "We operate in 188 countries now, with South Sudan as the new Red Cross, and that's bigger than Coca-Cola, and it's historical. It's to do with 150 years of history. It's to do with the Geneva Convention, the most signed Convention in the world. In North Korea, we have a million volunteers."
But judging from the questions that followed, it seemed corporate donors were less concerned about the distinguished past of the Red Cross, and more about what’s being done to prevent crises such as East Africa's hunger occurring in the first place.
In their cost-benefit analysis, they worry about giving money to tackle the symptoms of a disaster rather than its root causes. They're troubled by aid dependency and how to nip it in the bud, and fret about giving to the "right" emergency in a crowded market.
They also appear as baffled as the general public by big issues like who’s responsible for making human lives better, how a humanitarian response differs from a development project, and whether money is the cure for any of it.
"What appears to be lacking is investment in infrastructure and I don't quite know where the Red Cross stands on investment in infrastructure," one company representative said at the briefing. "You can't avoid an earthquake or a tsunami but you can avoid famine and drought. The money should have been spent five years ago, not now that people are starting to die."
Another, picking up on Peppiatt’s comments about how over 100,000 Ivorian refugees in Liberia are too afraid to return home and are "very much under the care and safety of the Red Cross and other aid agencies", remarked: "People living under the protection of the Red Cross is not a sustainable solution to this crisis and any insight into what the Red Cross might be doing to help build resilience (would be helpful).
"How long do you expect people to be under the care of the Red Cross? In funding terms, what funding would be required for the next step?" she asked.
To his credit, Peppiatt clarified that most Ivorians are actually being looked after by Liberian host families.
WORKING OUT WHO CARES
Another participant said one of the questions he faces in deciding if his company should donate is working out "how important a disaster is to offices around the world ... if it's in people's consciousness."
"Is there any way the Red Cross captures that public awareness and puts it in one place so the likes of me can say it's big news in 16 of our 20 places, therefore an appeal is likely to be successful?" he enquired, rather optimistically.
From the British Red Cross side of things, Peppiatt explained the factors that determine whether the aid agency launches an appeal for funds: the level of unmet needs in a crisis-hit country, whether it has appealed for international help, and the general "fundraising environment".
He acknowledged that there is no point in asking for money "if we sense ... there's no donor interest at all". Which is a shame for the Central African Republics, North Koreas and Ogadens of the world.
Astarita, however, dismissed gloomy headlines about suffering economies and under-funded humanitarian appeals.
"It's a challenge: how do we get people interested, excited, willing to give? And how do we continue that? Because there's always that worry about donor fatigue. Personally, I don't buy it and I've not yet seen it. It's a bit like the next one comes along and people tend to continue to be generous," he said, ending on a relatively upbeat note.
"By and large, it is a relatively small number of people that do the generosity. It would be naive to pretend it isn't."
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