No one wants to look a gift horse in the mouth, but the issue of corporate charity still needs a check-up, according to poverty activists.
Generous donations are appreciated. However, some are concerned about what they see as a movement away from corporate taxes, which are used to support social services, to a reliance on corporations to voluntarily “give back” to the community.
While many corporations and wealthy philanthropists do indeed give back by making significant donations to hospitals and other worthy causes, those donations usually come at a price — the expectation of publicity.
Corporations tend to want their charity recognized to promote their brand name and earn the moniker of “good corporate citizen.”
Hence, they’re inclined to give to organizations that have the resources to provide that kind of exposure.
“The concern is the organizations that get left behind, which are also increasingly not covered by the government, are the less PR-friendly ones and also overrepresented in poverty,” said Trish Garner, the community organizer for the B.C. Poverty Reduction Coalition.
“This includes things to do with disability, mental illness, refugees and First Nations.”
Misconceptions further perpetuate the uneven distribution, according to Garner.
“People divide it into the deserving versus the undeserving,” she said. “With health issues, it’s not people’s fault, it’s not their responsibility.
However, poverty still comes with negative stereotypes. People think those living in poverty are lazy and all they need to do is get a job to work their way out of it, whereas poverty issues are quite complex.”
With that logic, large charities that support health issues become the most popular targets for donations, whereas food banks, for example, miss the mark.
However, the greater concern is that decisions about what agencies should be supported and how wealth should be reallocated — decisions that some say should be in the hands of the people via elected representation — are increasingly in the hands of corporations: entities that make decisions that serve their own corporate interests.
“I’d like to see the government step in and make some real policy change,” said Garner.
As far as what corporations can do, she suggests adopting a minimum living wage policy, for example, in an effort to redistribute the wealth.
That would go much further towards lifting people out of poverty — if that’s one’s genuine objective.
Ultimately, giving to charities is not a bad thing, says Garner, but it helps fix the symptom of a broken system, rather than the cause.
Adopting a living wage, as opposed to minimum wage, is something the BC Federation of Labour has been lobbying the provincial government to introduce for many years.
The federation is acutely aware of the trend of the “working poor” turning up at the doors of charities for food and clothing.
“We need a poverty reduction strategy in B.C.; it’s not just about people without a job,” said Irene Lanzinger, the federation’s secretary-treasurer.
“We waited eight years to see a rise in the minimum wage and, even working full-time, it’s not enough to lift people above the poverty line.
“There are so many people working two and three jobs to make ends meet and many of those jobs are precarious. That group of people has increased over the last 10 years.”
Lanzinger said the current strategy of expecting corporations to be responsible enough to look after their workforce is not enough.
“It’s a race to the bottom and not all corporations act responsibly. That’s where the government has to take more of a role in making sure workers are looked after by introducing a poverty reduction strategy.”
