Getting corporate giving right

Does your business have a strategy for giving back to the community? Fi Bendall explains the changing face of corporate responsibility.

Current systems of corporate giving or volunteering are complex, producing poor experiences, often wasteful, they breed broken trust with redundant intermediaries and limited access.

Yet with a huge funding gap facing the not-for-profit sector, we need to change how we can support our communities. The “heavy lifters” at a community level are mainly the small to medium sized not-for-profits that cannot ride this funding gap and will disappear.

Business has a social responsibility to support and give back to those communities it takes profits from. Yet SME charities, NFP’s, NGO’s do not have the knowledge, resources or skills to approach business for its resources. Business doesn’t know where the “grass roots” SME charities are to give their resources. Government’scan’t afford to look after their people, business has to step in and step up.

At a micro level Individuals want to volunteer and participate to help their communities however don’t know where to start.

I’ve founded Genrossity, a web-based and mobile-optimised location-based marketplace for corporate giving and peer to peer volunteering, that redefines traditional corporate social responsibility [CSR] through technology and peer community.

CSR is ripe for disruption, currently a complex experience it is wasteful, and suffers from broken trusts, redundant intermediaries and limited access. Genrossity is a new generation disruptive business with similar DNA such as Uber, and Airbnb.

Whilst solving the communication breakdown between business, NFP’s and individuals in the conscious capital space, Genrossity will gain tremendous awareness and substantial International membership participation. Currently the platform is in Beta with crowdsource tech experts working on perfecting it. Genrossity will launch in March 2015, in Australia, India and the UK.

There is huge evidence by running and promoting social community programs has a direct impact on profitability (as much as 5 per cent increased profitability), as consumers will always favour a business who is giving back (Nielsen 2014 Global Study on CSR).

At its core Genrossity is a giving auction that simplifies the process.

·         The ability to swap and give through technology and a peer community

·         An freemium auction function where companies give, charities pitch

·         A scalable platform that is highly filter to specifically match make companies to Not for Profits that align with their community interest, from health, to education, to rural, to indigenous to homelessness to unemployment and so on.

·         It also offers a match-making classifieds function for individuals to offer random acts of kindness to other individuals in need in their community
I look forward to your participation, together we can make a difference.

Fi Bendall is an expert and pioneer in digital strategy and one of Australia’s most respected leaders in the digital space. She is the Managing Director of Bendalls Group, a team of highly trained digital specialists, i-media subject matter experts and developers. Her business leads some of Australia’s most successful business strategies.