Maximizing Impact in Corporate Giving to Humanitarian Crises and Disaster Relief

Khaled Akacha

In recent years, companies have significantly increased their contributions to humanitarian causes. In 2022, Ukraine grabbed the spotlight. Within the first few weeks of the conflict alone, hundreds of millions of dollars were mobilized through corporate giving programs and company foundations.

If you run a corporate giving program, you’ve likely responded to the Ukraine appeal and many other emergencies. As the number of humanitarian crises continues to rise, with 1 in 23 people worldwide in need of assistance and an average of 350–500 medium- to large-scale disasters per year, it’s more important than ever for companies to have a strategic plan for their humanitarian giving.

When deciding which crises to support, companies are often influenced by employee expectations and pressure, magnitude, personal connections to the affected area and media coverage. Studies also show that psychological factors also bias giving towards natural disasters rather than human-made disasters, and donation numbers illustrate this.

Bias in giving is natural. But that means it should also be managed. You don’t want to run out of funds after the first solicitation of the fiscal year, have employees sense favouritism in your giving choices or select an unaligned recipient.

If your company takes the time to think strategically about the causes and organizations you donate to, then disaster and humanitarian giving should also be a part of that strategic plan.

In this article, we’re not going to argue over which crises have more right to donations than others. This article instead provides an approach that can help companies decide on humanitarian giving priorities and how to support with more impact.

My three recommendations are:

1. Integrate humanitarian and disaster assistance into your overall giving strategy. Evaluate your community connections, strengths, products, interests and most appropriate stage of intervention.
2. When evaluating methods of support, prioritize cash donations, but explore other opportunities.
3. Be proactive and consistent in your giving by building long-term relationships.

By taking a strategic approach, you’ll understand how you fit into the humanitarian response, develop focus and create aligned partnerships to ensure your humanitarian efforts make the most impact and help to improve the lives of those affected by crises and disasters.

1. Integrate humanitarian and disaster assistance into your giving strategy

The main reasons companies engage in humanitarian assistance are similar to why they engage with community stakeholders: because it affects their business (reducing business risk); strengthens their brand; engages employees; and fosters innovation.

So, don’t neglect being specific about it in your giving strategy. What is your rationale for engaging in humanitarian action and how should it be done? Keep this in mind as you go through strategic exercises like materiality assessments. This will help mitigate the risk of going off-plan (as many companies do) in your support.

Think about the communities you work in near and far. What could affect your employees, business and supply chain the most if there was a humanitarian crisis in one of these communities? Companies that have a local connection and good local reputation create a more favourable impact from their giving and result in better, longer-term recovery.

Consider your strengths, your products and your thematic interests, and — something that could be easily overlooked — evaluate if it’s important for you to be involved in the prevention, preparedness, response or recovery stage of a crisis. Say your giving focus is on education. When an appropriate appeal comes through, you could provide funding to an organization that offers education in refugee camps. Or, perhaps disaster preparedness is important to you, and you can proactively provide helpful technology to organizations that need it.

2. Evaluate your methods of support for humanitarian crises

There are four key ways people can support humanitarian work and disaster relief:

• cash donations
• in-kind (donated goods or services)
• volunteering
• partnerships

First, let’s say it all together now: Cash Is Best.

With cash donations, especially donations that aren’t restricted to a specific response, organizations have the ability to put money where they know it’s needed most. It provides flexibility and allows for a more effective response.

But many people still want to give in-kind and primarily for three reasons: because it makes them feel they’ve “done more”; they have excess goods to give away; and they think it’s more helpful than cash.

Unless there are calls for specific goods and the not-for-profit has proven in past emergencies that they have strong supply chain and logistical management, or you already have a mutually-agreed in-kind agreement in place, then in-kind is not best.

The drive to provide in-kind donations is strong, so here are a few things to think about:

• Moving and storing goods is expensive and risky.
• External goods undermine local economies because, for the most part, needed goods can be found locally and regionally.
• Strict guidelines need to be followed for medical donations.
• Seasoned humanitarian organizations already have a roster of companies worldwide they can get goods and services from at a moment’s notice.
• Cash assistance is becoming more widely used in humanitarian efforts (Ukraine’s response has included millions of dollars in cash assistance alone).
• The bottom line: most unsolicited donations are unusable.

Volunteering is another path of support, which may require a short or long commitment. For local disaster response, people need specific skills and training ahead of time. Humanitarian and disaster responders with highly technical and specialized skills, training and years of experience get deployed — typically for several months — on international assignments. Otherwise, employees can do virtual or capacity building support, like translation or providing pro bono workshops or legal advice.

Collaboration provides opportunities for innovation and stability for the not-for-profit partner. Think about what you can uniquely offer in a partnership. Perhaps you have logistics expertise like Deutsche Post DHL, the right goods or supply chain like Coca-Cola or useful technology like Microsoft. Start exploring these opportunities early to co-create — not right when a disaster strikes — so that you can create something mutually beneficial.

Also: Leverage an employee giving program

Employee giving programs allow employees to contribute to a fundraising campaign or make their own decision about where their donation goes, in some cases with donations being matched by the employer. While this can help take the onus to decide which humanitarian crises to give to off of companies, employee giving programs should be complementary, rather than a stand-in for strategic giving.

You can run campaigns to encourage or match donations to specific organizations or causes. You can educate employees about your giving priorities throughout the year to increase donations to your preferred organizations and to get employees onboard with your efforts. Make sure to balance employee-led initiatives and donations with what is important to you as a company.

3. Be proactive and consistent in your giving

Donations to emergencies trickle out within six weeks after the disaster, but the consequences and rebuilding can last for years. Humanitarian emergencies are increasingly complex, long-lasting and multi-faceted. And then there are persistently underfunded crises all over the world. Not-for-profits are typically responding to dozens of crises every year. So, do you wait for the next appeal or find ways to provide consistent and predictable support for what comes next?

It should be easier, after you’ve thought about how to integrate humanitarian and disaster assistance into your giving strategy, to see what your involvement will look like. Look to establish more fruitful and consistent relationships with not-for-profits in the humanitarian sector to demonstrate your commitment to your stakeholders.

Long-term commitments are very welcomed by organizations. If you give generally and unrestricted annually to a not-for-profit that fits your goals, they’ll be able to use that funding to prepare for the next crisis and know those funds are available when needed. You could also make multi-year commitments to provide technical assistance or fund specific projects that fit your cause, like health systems recovery or water, sanitation and hygiene provision.

Before you respond to the next crisis and disaster appeal, work to set out a strategic plan to help counter bias in your humanitarian and disaster relief giving. A focused, connected plan will get your employees and stakeholders on board and make the most meaningful impact on the not-for-profits you’ll support.

Let me help you build and communicate your own organization’s programs. Get in touch at at Amy Coulterman Consulting.