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Community support as business’ most treasured currency

Community support as business’ most treasured currency

For businesses that are desirous of gaining the trust and loyalty of their stakeholders, particularly, customers, supporting the community where they operate and thrive is a currency that must be treasured, OZIOMA UBABUKOH writes

Generally known as Corporate Social Responsibility, community support, according to experts, is businesses’ way of giving back to the society where they operate.

Whether physical or intangible (businesses’ intangible impacts in the society have value but do not exist physically), community support, in experts’ views, is the currency of love, care and passion with which to exchange for stakeholders’ loyalty and trust in the society where business organisations operate and make money.

As such, any business that values loyalty must treasure community support and stay committed to it by continuously giving back to the people.

When a team of medical personnel from the United States’ Virgin Islands visited Nigeria recently to treat some customers of a power distribution firm, the Managing Director of XT Monitor, one of the promoters of the mission, Mr. Kayode Adeoti, said the mission was a CSR initiative meant to lift the burden of medical treatment off the targeted persons.

Also, in February, the Chief Executive Officer, Enyo Retail and Supply, Abayomi Awobokun, described the training of 5,000 auto mechanics across the country as the company’s way of giving back to the society. The training was aimed at upskilling Nigeria’s army of auto technicians, whose knowledge of modern automobiles is suspect.

Of course, they considered their actions as a demonstration of the belief that responsible corporate entities must see and treat the act of giving back to the society where they operate as a social duty that must be discharged.

In view of this, the Executive Director, Altrasav Limited, Mr. Andrew Oginni, posited that it was very important for businesses to contribute to the well-being of the local communities where they are located.

This, he explained, could take place by providing support in a variety of forms like funding to not-for-profit and local community organisations, donations to charitable organisations and non-governmental organisations, grants to employees and the community at large.

“Doing this will bolster goodwill and understanding of their respective concerns, and also enable the identification of how and where the organisation can bring sustainable benefits, build local capacity and foster healthy and long-lasting relationships,” Oginni stated.

FBNHoldings, which shares the view that businesses should give back to the society, described community support, in its Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability report, as its most treasured currency, adding that care and support for its teeming stakeholders had become a core sustainability ideal for the group.

Woven around its brand promise of putting customers at the heart of its business, FBNHoldings said it had expanded its community support initiative towards achieving customers’ core needs in the four major areas of education, health and welfare, economic empowerment and the environment.

“This has been driven by a series of programmes such as the educational endowment programme, youth leadership, infrastructure development, hope rising initiative, employee giving and volunteering, and the future CSR goals,” the Head, Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability, FBN, Ismail Omamegbe, said.

Going far beyond any scheme for profit, the group said commitment to developing its communities was tied around a passion to constantly build broader, deeper and more enduring symbiotic relationships.

As a firm believer in educational driven community support, Omamegbe stated, “FBNHoldings’ Educational Endowment Programme regularly provides annual research grants, annual public presentation of research findings, and annual awards for the best graduating students in tertiary institutions.”

According to him, the endowment programme also runs a sustainability centre designed to empower members of staff of the Group, customers and other stakeholders, including NGOs, media practitioners and Small and Medium Enterprises.

“As a result of the aggressive implementation of the programme, it has successfully accrued about 38,000 hours in empowering secondary school students with skills in different aspects of life, enhancing their ability to make better choices for the future.”

Emphasising that there was no better way to give back to the society than properly grooming the future generation, Omamegbe said FBNHoldings was supporting various professorial chairs in business ethics; computer science; petroleum, chemical, water resources, and mechanical engineering; agronomy; paediatrics; veterinary medicine, and banking and finance in 10 universities across the country.

FBNHolding said its ‘Hope Rising Initiative’, targeted at assisting people living with disabilities, while dealing with other health and welfare related issues, had continued to offer medical aids, financial support and assistance to organisations that care for people in need.

The core objective of the initiative, Omamegbe said, was to “engender inclusivity and diversity through education, advocacy and enlightenment; skills acquisition through training; as well as inclusive events.”

Persons living with disabilities in Nigeria are estimated to be about 25 million by the World Health Organisation. According to the 2011 World Report on Disability by the WHO and the World Bank, persons with disabilities as a group, on average, are more likely to experience adverse socioeconomic outcomes than persons without disabilities, such as less education, worse health outcomes, less employment and higher poverty rates.

In view of this reality, FBNHolding said it had partnered with the Down Syndrome Foundation, supported the Benola Cerebral Palsy Initiative during the commemoration of the World Cerebral Palsy Day, and had continued to support the Golden Hearts Touching Lives Initiative.  The overall aim is to help Nigerians with disabilities.

To this end, Omamegbe added that the group had made donations to the Nigeria Society for the Blind and extended support to the CBA Foundation during the commemoration of the International Widows’ Day.

Quoting the company’s Citizenship Report, Omamegbe said a youth with disabilities, Mr. Ade Adelekan, also received financial support from FBNHoldings to complete his final year research project.

“A para-badminton gold medallist, Folawiyo Jimoh, was supported by the initiative to attend a championship in Europe. Mr. Adebisi Omojola, a fifth-year medical student at the University of Lagos received medical intervention for an illness bordering on kidney malfunction, which enabled him to continue his education,” he added.

The cases, he explained, were mentioned to emphasise the need for corporate entities to pay attention to community support as a currency that should be leveraged to gain the trust and loyalty of stakeholders in the society where they operate.

Ogini, the Altrasav boss, added that the local communities where businesses operate were important partners and should enjoy the attention of the businesses as and when due.

He said, “It is pertinent for organisations to believe that local communities are important partners. As such, projects or business activities must be designed and implemented to minimise impacts, provide shared value and enhance relationships with the local community.

“Creating new jobs, encouraging local businesses by making them part of the supply chain, for example, and providing useful skills training can have an impact on all communities where businesses operate.”

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