Corporate Giving Workshop with Dr Lonneke Roza

On Wednesday the 20th of November corporate giving practitioners joined Philanthropy Ireland for an interactive workshop on corporate giving. It was facilitated by Dr Lonneke Roza, who presented different perspectives on corporate philanthropy, CSR and citizenship. She explored how managers can align their community involvement and philanthropic endeavors with their business.

Several questions were raised through out the course of the session. With practitioners asking how they can best stimulate employee engagement, the opportunities and challenges of synergies and questioning what factors were important to take into account whilst engaging employees in a programme.

Participants at the recent PI Corporate Giving Workshop facilitated by Dr Lonneke Roza (2019)

There were several key takeaways from the event:

1. It seems that there is a lack of consensus on terminology being used by practitioners; This makes forums more difficult if attendees do not understand the terminology being used.
2. The typology of the synergies discussed gave a frame to what is possible and helped to rethink current practices. Where are we now and where would we like to go? The presentation also helped to identify the motivations of the company.
3. The workshop provided good examples of communicating the work of the practitioner or foundation and how this communication can be used to stimulate employees to join the program.

Dr Lonneke’s workshop highlighted that there is a peer-group of like minded people with similar questions and challenges whom are happy to share their experiences and brainstorm on how to take the next steps in their work, and Philanthropy Ireland is committed to facilitating this.

It was an inspiring session, showing that together, a healthy infrastructure can be built for corporate giving in Ireland.