Profits beyond the bottom line

This year’s LCF Guild Awards offered up a very bountiful harvest of corporate-initiated and -funded community projects – over a hundred were nominated for the annual awards. It was a daunting task to evaluate so many projects, but an uplifting exercise to learn about so many positive endeavors. It was a difficult task, to give each its due, to recognize each project’s value in terms of the judging criteria – social relevance, innovation, social impact and sustainability.

Of course, all CSR projects are fundamentally socially relevant and impactful, in varying degrees. What for me made many of the projects outstanding was innovation – how the needs and problems of a community or sector are met not with the usual fallback solutions, but with creative, out-of-the-box approaches. Likewise investing time, effort and resources in working with the people on the ground – not just the beneficiaries but their families, community leaders, local governments so that the solutions are integrated into community life, thus ensuring sustainability beyond the timeframe of the project.

Rather than one-shot efforts like tree planting or medical missions – although these are valuable – these projects are well thought out, researched, planned and funded. Many are located in the areas where the corporations operate, making them good neighbors. Others start in a limited area, with intention of replicating the projects in other communities. Some are multiyear programs that give benefits over the longer term.

Solutions to problems need not be complicated. Kasilak National High School in Panabo, Davao del Norte had previously received some science equipment, but the school did not have a laboratory facility, so students could not make full use of the equipment. Rather than aiming for a building that would require looking for multimillion-peso funding, contract bidding and approval, the Marsman Drysdale Foundation converted and retrofitted a shipping container into a functional science laboratory. Hundreds of students have been conducting experiments and discovering the wonders of science in this movable laboratory since its turnover last November.

Leveraging the core business of one of the companies in the group as the exclusive assembler and distributor of India-branded Bajaj tricycles, the Jesus V. Del Rosario Foundation tweaked the usual financing model. Drivers get to own their vehicle on an agreed monthly repayment amount, without interest. Instead of going to the company, this amount is reinvested into another tricycle for the next driver.

Thus TricyKab not only frees drivers from the boundary system, it gives them the pride and dignity of being their own boss and, more importantly, instills in them a sense of shared responsibility, aware that their payback is actually paying it forward for another driver. TricyKab works nationwide, with some areas already on their third set of beneficiaries and with the first female tricycle driver in Siquijor as a model beneficiary.

Back-to-BAKuna quite literally goes beyond a one-shot deal. The program of the Ronald MacDonald Foundation addresses the usually neglected issue of follow-up vaccinations. Parents/guardians bring their children to health centers when vaccine programs are launched, but many do not go back for subsequent visits to complete the required doses.

Rather than set up a separate vaccination system, Back-to-BAKuna worked within existing community health care systems with simple, inexpensive but effective and efficient interventions – helping parents remember vaccine schedules with digital reminders, helping them with transport and preparation. A group vaccine card banked on the barkada effect – when parents talk to each other, compare experiences, encourage their friends and go to the health centers together, the follow-up vaccine rate for kids increased significantly.

Back-to-BAKuna was pilot tested in two cities in Iloilo, with significant increases in vaccine completion rates. Post-project impact analysis identified the interventions that worked, and such information was given to local health services so they may be integrated into their routine immunization, outreach and health promotions activities – at very little or no extra cost.

Sometimes one just can’t do it alone. Recovering from a devastating magnitude 6.9 earthquake followed a couple of months later by catastrophic Typhoon Tino is a gargantuan task for the people of Cebu. The physical damage was massive in terms of infrastructure and homes destroyed; rebuilding alone would be a colossal task.

Primary Structures Educational Foundation of Cebu’s Primary Group of Builders sought to rebuild not just homes but the dignity and well-being of survivors. Their Rebuilding Homes, Rebuilding Lives program was started in 2013 following Super Typhoon Yolanda. This time the program went beyond immediate repairs to building permanent housing. The scale of the recovery required concerted effort, thus Primary brought in other LCF foundations like Jollibee, Megawide, Vivant, Marsman Drysdale and Viscal as well as other corporate and private donors to carry out a three-phase program.

The immediate effort was providing food relief (controlled and balanced nutritious meals), hygiene and temporary shelter kits to almost a thousand targeted beneficiaries. The second phase leveraged the group’s competency – constructing permanent, disaster-resilient professionally designed houses using high quality materials able to withstand extreme weather conditions. The third phase provided training in masonry and tile setting so residents can do repair work when needed as well as earn from their new skills.

These are but four of the outstanding projects responsible corporations have undertaken, showing that profits beyond the bottom line are what truly matter.