How businesses can contribute positively to local schools and communities

This paper explores how the UK corporate sector engages with its local schools and community organisations to contribute towards effective community regeneration. Businesses have been contributing to the education, social inclusion, health and well-being of their communities for centuries. Business philanthropy is not a new activity but, with the mainstreaming of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the last decade, and the blurring of responsibility for delivery of public services across the public, private and third sectors, more corporates are investing more resources into developing partnerships with third-sector organisations to deliver effective investment programmes in their communities. While philanthropy is an altruistic 'giving' activity, CSR is more aligned to core business activity, bringing society and business objectives together in mutually beneficial engagement. CSR can be seen as a response to society's need for higher levels of accountability and transparency of the social, economic and environmental impacts of business practices. The benefits of community involvement and local regeneration of towns and cities where businesses operate are being recognised through management processes, contributing to the business case for such engagement. The paper goes on to highlight current examples of best practice and UK business engagement in its schools and wider communities. Through membership organisations which benchmark corporate community involvement, one can see how much businesses are investing in local communities and the recent trends. Much of this benchmarking is the result of membership networks which provide standard models and measurement tools for reporting on quantitative and qualitative data. In addition, this paper will outline some of the practical steps businesses may consider when setting up a programme of community engagement and how community organisations can move towards sustainable partnerships with businesses.