Community
Relations and
Sponsorship
The social responsibilities of companies
Len Peach likens the impact of an organization
on its communities to that of a stone being dropped
into a pond, with the ripples going outward.
A company at level one fulfils the basics:
it pays its taxes, observes the law, deals fairly and
honorably with staff, suppliers and shareholders. At
level two, a company takes account of its effect on
the environment and seeks to minimize the negative
effects by, for example, containing pollution and
avoiding product misuse. This type of organization
will typically act in the spirit rather than to the letter of
the law and will be in the forefront in anticipating
trends in legislation and consumer awareness.
These two levels cover most of what respectable
companies think is their responsibility to society
and the communities on which they have an
impact.
The level three company has a different
outlook. It sees that the healthier the environment,
the better the company’s prospects, and is
therefore concerned to do something about the ills
that constrain the healthy development of society.
If we take the stakeholder approach, we can
see that public relations is vital to an organization's
corporate and social responsibility, which can be
defined as: ‘the responsibility to plan and manage
an organization's relationships with all those
involved in or affected by its activities, or those
who can affect the ability of that organization to
operate effectively [i.e. its stakeholders]’
Impact of a business on its environment:
ripples in a pond
Figure 8.1
Some examples of corporate responsibility:
issues for consideration by individual
departments
Figure 8.2
Organisation functions in terms of corporate responsibility
Research and development
animal testing
socially useful product development
Manufacturing
processes — waste
methods — de-skilling
Finance
where raised
share availability
where invested
Marketing
methods
audiences
Personnel
recruitment and selection policies
training
personal development
Distribution
environmental considerations
social utility
Public relations strategic objectives
programme methods
Planning and managing an organization's
relationships with its stakeholders, or publics, is
what public relations is all about. How companies
behave and how they are reported, talked about
and thus perceived by their publics, is arguably the
greatest factor in the management of their
reputation.
A company may take the view that it is
important for it to be able to recruit from a well-
educated pool, and may therefore serve its own
interests by providing educational resources or
opportunities. Companies in the information
technology business can only sell their products
and services to customers who are IT-literate, so it
makes sense for them to ensure that society
becomes familiar and comfortable with computers
and their uses.
Many successful and highly profitable companies spend
large amounts of time and money on fulfilling their social
responsibilities. They may do so purely for commercial
reasons, because they want to raise their profile and
improve their reputation through being associated with
‘good works’, because they know that what is good for
society is good for business, or out of altruism.
He believes such benefits can add up to a
significant competitive advantage for a company.
Properly managed empoylee volunteer schemes provide
a win-win-win situation for those involved: the charitable
or voluntary body which receives the volunteer, the
volunteer and the company all benefit in numerous ways
(Bunta 1992: 38).
Community Relations
Fostering good community relations requires
the organisation first to identify its local
communities and then to plan its relations with
them in line with the organisation’s corporate
objectives. A community relations programme
which is unrelated to the organisation’s
objectives will fail because neither the staff,
shareholders nor the local community itself will
understand why it is being undertaken, unless
it is only intended to make the organisation
look good.
Grants
Within its community relations policy, an organisation
may make provision for giving grants to local groups
such as a mother and toddler group, a residents’
association or the village brass band. An important
consideration is whether or not these are one-off gifts
or whether the group can rely on financial support on
a regular basis. Sometimes companies will give
grants for pump-priming only, to help a group get
started, and expect the recipients to fund themselves
in the future. Grants are sometimes given through
charitable foundations or trusts set up by companies
as a separate operation from their normal business,
as shown in the example of Dreyer’s ice cream.
Equipment
Companies may have a policy of donating surplus,
out-dated or even new equipment to the local
community. This may be a regular gift or the company
may take applications as it receives them. Sometimes
companies give equipment, usually their own
products, as raffle prizes for charitable events.
Equipment gifts, together with grants, may form part
of a sponsorship package.
Staff secondments
An organization may choose not to give cash or
materials but may instead lend staff to work on
community projects. The company sees this as a
form of staff development, from which mutual benefit
will accrue. Some companies second staff into their
organisations or offer them the chance to swap jobs
— a teacher may change places with a supermarket
manager, for example. The organization continues to
pay members of staff on secondment as if they were
still working for it. Staff may be able to opt to work for
their pet project. The company benefits from the
wider experience — and sometimes from a different
perspective — which seconded staff bring back to the
organization. Companies increasingly offer their staff
as mentors, as the examples of KPMG and Marks
and Spencer in Figure 8.3 show.
Training
Members of the local community may be given free
or cheap training by the organization in everything
from book-keeping for voluntary bodies to computer
skills for the unemployed. Many companies now
have their own dedicated training section as part of
the human resources department, and offering this
resource to the community can help the staff
development of the trainers, as well as fulfilling other
company objectives.
Projects
Use of facilities
A company may make its sports facilities, its
canteen or even its photocopying facilities
available to the local community. It is a way of
introducing local people into the firm and helping
them to see the company as a resource rather
than a nuisance.
Visitor Centres
Companies are increasingly opening their doors to
visitors, not only on special occasions but all the year
round. This can fulfill a number of objectives. It can
show that the organization is open and has nothing to
hide, as the British Nuclear Fuels visitor centre at
Sellafield has attempted to do. A case study of this
centre is given by Richard Varey (1997). It can give
visitors an understanding of the philosophy behind
the company, which the Body Shop’s centre aspires
to. Or it can act as a self-financing or income-
generating tourist attraction, such as Cadbury’s
World, sited close to the company’s chocolate factory
at Bourneville near Birmingham.
Visits to see working factories, craft workshops or
farms are becoming increasingly popular with the
public. Sometimes visitor centres, with their
associated shops and cafes, create new employment
opportunities for the local community, as well as
acting as a leisure attraction and possibly an
educational resource, in the form of school trips.
Open days
Open days have a long history as a method of
improving community relations and they can still be
highly successful. Anything which involves wearing a
hard hat or climbing on to a huge piece of machinery
will usually be very popular with children: fire stations,
bus garages and generating stations have discovered
this. Staff often get a great deal of pleasure, as well
as the opportunity to improve team-working and to
express their creativity, out of organizing and running
open days. Such events can act as a recruiting
ground for new staff, an opportunity to show how the
company operates, and a way of showing what the
company brings to the community in which it is
based.
Environmental improvements
Once a company has its own house in order in
terms of its policies and practices on the
environment, it can become involved in
environmental improvements in the local
community. This may range from putting money
and equipment into cleaning up a local eyesore to
developing a new environmental corridor. The Five
Weirs Walk, alongside the formerly heavily
polluted River Don in the east end of Sheffield, is
now a flourishing nature trail, supporting
populations of kingfishers and even the occasional
trout.
The riverside walk has been created largely as a
result of the money, land, labour and goodwill
donated by the companies operating close to the
river. Elsewhere, staff interests and environmental
improvements came together when ten divers from
IBM’s sub-aqua club restored and mapped an
underwater nature trail at the Purbeck Marine
Wildlife Reserve in Dorset, following heavy storms.
Public speaking
Some organizations have a speakers’ panel: a group
of trained staff who can go out to pensioners’ lunch
clubs, business dinners, residents’ meetings or other
professional and community groups to speak about
the organization. They will have prepared material to
show, such as slides, video or a photographic
exhibition; they may have leaflets, brochures or even
free samples to give away. Members of a speakers’
panel must always be thoroughly trained and kept up
to date, and it is vital that they do not give conflicting
messages about the company even if their styles
differ.
Media relations
The local media forms a very important public for
local community relations. The media will report on
what the company does and can take a cynical or a
positive attitude to the organization. The organization
needs to bear this in mind when it is planning its
community relations programmes, and to ensure that
it keeps in close contact with the local media and with
local representatives of the national media. This may
be important in order to gain maximum coverage for
what the company is doing, but it may simply be in
order to ensure that a good flow of information to the
media is maintained.
Sponsorship
Why sponsor?
Here are five reasons why an organization might
consider sponsorship.
To familiarize the name
This may be necessary either because a brand or
company is new, because a product has been
launched under a new name or a company has
changed its name, because it has always had a very
low profile, or because people are wary of using the
name, perhaps because it is hard to pronounce or it
has undesirable connotations. Two examples will
show how name familiarization was achieved by
sponsorship.
To reinforce corporate identity
Sometimes the holding company or parent is hardly
known, while its brands are famous. It may be that a
company has the same name as others in different
fields, and needs to differentiate itself. Here are
examples of both, and how sponsorship was
beneficial to the companies concerned.
To demonstrate goodwill
Sponsoring charitable or arts events is a way for a
company to demonstrate goodwill and thus be looked
upon kindly by its target publics,
When advertising is not an alternative
The television advertising ban on cigarettes means
that the only way a tobacco company can get brand
name exposure on the small screen is by sponsoring
an event which is covered by television. These have
often been sporting events, although the continuing
debate about the linkage of healthy activities with that
of cigarette smoking indicates there will be a ban on
this activity before long. Even for products where no
outright ban exists, the rules about advertising a
product on television may make sponsorship a better
bet.
To attract media interest
Sponsoring an event which is in itself interesting to
the media ensures that the sponsor will get some
media coverage merely by being linked to the event.
However, a controversial linkage, or one which is
particularly apposite, or humorous, will probably result
in greater coverage for the sponsor. Similarly,
choosing an event which is itself making news will
attract more media interest.
What can be sponsored?
As we have seen above, there are numerous
vehicles for sponsorship. When considering
sponsorship opportunities, a company needs to
consider how it will meet the company’s objectives,
as we have already noted. An important
consideration is that the target audience for the
sponsored activity should be the same public which
the organization is trying to reach. This may seem
obvious, but the days when sponsorship activities
were undertaken on the chairman’s whim or on
behalf of someone’s favourite good cause, are by no
means over.
In addition the sponsorship programme must be
relevant or appropriate in some way to the
organization doing the sponsoring. This can be as
simple as the two parties sharing a name, such as
Royal Insurance sponsoring the Royal Shakespeare
Company. The link may more directly connect product
and event, such as the high-energy Mars Bar and the
London Marathon. There may be a visual link, such as
the insurance company Legal and General’s logo, an
umbrella, and their sponsorship of the local weather
forecast.
It is worth listing for the sake of completeness
the vehicles which companies have used for
sponsorship.
Sport
This has to come first in any listing. More money is
spent on sports sponsorship than any other
category and it has become a crowded field in
which to take up sponsorship activities. Sports
include football, cricket, athletics, tennis, yacht
racing, motor racing and golf. Some sports are
attractive to sponsors because those who follow
them form a tightly drawn target audience; others
because of their wide international appeal and for
the opportunity to get television coverage.
The arts
Sponsorship of the arts, such as underwriting the
costs of traveling art exhibitions or putting on an
opera season, is often seen as the more
philanthropic end of sponsorship, undertaken
primarily for goodwill. However, the
appropriateness of the target audience is often the
prime consideration. This explains why financial
institutions such as banks and insurance
companies regularly sponsor the arts.
Performers
Orchestras, theatre companies and individual
artists and artistes can be sponsored. Spin-offs
include the use of corporate hospitality for the
sponsoring company and its clients, and such
media as CD boxes and theatre programmes for
acknowledgements. As with any sponsorship
activity, though, the performance can go horribly
wrong. The rock-star who succumbs to the
overuse of drugs on tour will reflect very badly on
his or her sponsor.
Books
The publication of books is sponsored by such
companies as Guinness, with the Guinness Book of
Records series; and Rentokil, who have sponsored a
library of books on pest-control. A company may
sponsor a single book, such as the Kingfisher group’s
sponsorship of a book on corporate social
responsibility. Or it may sponsor a training manual,
such as Barclays’ sponsorship of the St John
Ambulance first-aid course notes. Sponsorship of
publications is usually part of a wider marketing or
public relations campaign.
Exhibitions and shows
Trade shows are often sponsored by the
industry sector concerned, while overseas
trade missions may be sponsored partly by
participating businesses and partly by
government funding. They may be self-
funding or income-generating, as well as
providing the opportunity to conduct
business and offer hospitality.
Expeditions
Single-handed voyages round the world, treks to
the North Pole and character-building youth
expeditions have all been sponsored. These offer
the chance to sponsors to associate themselves
with celebrity, and also with the virtues of
ruggedness, pioneering and healthy activity, so
long as no disastrous accidents occur. An added
benefit can be the use of sponsors’ products on an
expedition, both to test them in harsh conditions,
and to use the results for subsequent product
endorsement.
Charities and voluntary bodies
This may range from supporting staff who are raising
money for charity to sponsoring a charity’s event.
Roadline sponsored the collection of charity parcels
on behalf of the children’s television show, Blue
Peter, and the British Heart Foundation has attracted
sponsorship from a manufacturer of diet foods for its
annual Slim-In. Barclays contributed 50,000 to the
Breath of Life campaign, run by St John Ambulance
to encourage members of the public to learn the
technique of resuscitation. Charitable sponsorships
are usually undertaken for goodwill, for staff
motivation or for their ability to reach a specific target
audience.
Awards
The Booker company and brewers Whitbread both
sponsor literary prizes, which are well reported in the
media. The IPR’s Sword of Excellence awards are
sponsored category by category, some by public
relations consultancies such as Shandwick and
others by firms such as Mercury and Vickers.
Glenfiddich, the whisky distillery, sponsors awards
for food and drink writers and Diners Club sponsors
an award scheme for young chefs. This type of
sponsorship offers the opportunity for escalating
media coverage as the heats of the competition
progress, and coverage of a major event, complete
with photogenic celebrities and hospitality
opportunities, at the end.
Community events
These have been discussed in the earlier section
on community relations. Another example is that of
Henry Boot, the building firm, which provides local
churches with a large, well equipped and very
beautiful setting for their annual garden party in the
grounds of its headquarters building.
Educational activities
This includes the award of scholarships and
grants, sometimes by companies to individual
students, who may be expected to work for the
company during the vacations and following
graduation. Some organizations sponsor
specific areas of research. Educational material
may be sponsored and both the sugar industry
and the nuclear industry have made free
material available to schools on this basis.
Advisory services
While these are sometimes thinly veiled sales
pitches, a number of companies sponsor
advisory services which offer the public
sensible and impartial, free advice. Trade
associations sometimes offer a service to help
people in making a decision on, for example,
the purchase of financial services. Callers were
given advice on the storage and preparation of
such foods, rather than a sales message .
Makers of household bleach, sponsor a
hygiene advisory service which in its turn
sponsors the Pre-school Playgroups
Association.
Television sponsorship
This is a relative newcomer in the UK, although it has
been common for many years in the USA. In the UK,
television sponsorship falls into two types.
The first is the sponsorship of off-air material,
which sprang from the community units set up in the
1980s by television stations. these units typically run
seminars, competitions and road shows, requiring
sponsorship to help pay for the cost of associated
information booklets and packs for schools.
Companies such as British Gas, Lloyds Bank and
Sainsbury’s have sponsored this kind of material.
Although on-air sponsorship was not permitted until
recently, sponsors of off-air material could have their
names reported on-air.
The sponsorship of television programmes has been
permitted since 1991. Television sponsorship has the
advantage over television advertising in that the
viewer tends to associate the product with the
‘editorial’ content rather than with the paid-for
advertising slots, thus giving the sponsors’ message
more credibility.
How does it work?
Once an organization has decided that
sponsorship is an appropriate vehicle to achieve
its objectives it needs to get the activity underway.
Responsibility for making it happen may lie with
the personnel department, with the head of public
relations, in the marketing division or with a
dedicated member of the board of directors.
Summary points
It makes good business sense to foster good
relations with the community. Each organization
has its own community publics to consider.
Companies have social responsibilities. Fulfilling
these is not merely a question of altruism but can
be of great mutual benefit and can give a company
a competitive edge.
Organizations should plan their community
relations in line with their corporate objectives and
be clear and consistent in applying their policy,
Elements of a community relations programme may
include giving grants or equipment, staff
secondments, offering training or the use of other
company facilities, becoming involved in local
projects, opening a visitor centre, organizing
open days, improving the environment and
setting up a speakers’ panel. Local media
relations are also important.
Sponsorship is sometimes undertaken as part of
a community relations programme. It may be
used, in addition, to familiarize a name, to
reinforce corporate identity, to demonstrate
goodwill, because advertising is not a suitable
alternative or to attract media interest.
There are numerous vehicles for sponsorship
from sport to television series. Sponsors and
those seeking sponsorship find each other
through direct contact, through directories or
advertising, or through specialist consultancies.
Sponsorship arrangements need to be
thoroughly costed and evaluated.
