What is Corporate Philanthropy and why is the S in ESG too important for businesses to ignore? Interview undertaken by Kirsty Lang in 2021 with the Chair of Global Philanthropic Holdings, Iain Rawlinson.

Kirsty Lang 0:01

What does this phrase ‘Corporate Philanthropy’ mean and why is it so important right now?

Iain Rawlinson 0:10

Corporate philanthropy is really all about businesses engaging with what are thought of as philanthropic causes. And this type of engagement is an expression of a company’s purpose. It is an expression of how a corporate is engaging, particularly with the S side of ESG, the social issues. And it’s certainly something that the talent of the future will judge a business by as an expression of the values and direction of the business. And because corporate philanthropy is difficult to define and has many different interpretations, boards can sometimes suffer from that lack of definition, and they need help from external advisors to unravel how they should approach it. The interesting thing is that boards are seriously engaged with it at the moment, reflecting the general needs in the global community which have been accentuated by the global pandemic.