Business in the Community Ireland Reveals Top Companies Contributed €396,303 and 1958 volunteer hours to Charities and Community Groups in Tipperary in 2016
The companies who made an impact in Tipperary: Abbott Ireland, Bank of Ireland,. Boots Retail (Irl) Ltd., Bord na Mona, BT Ireland, Cook Medical, Dawn Meats Group, Gas Networks Ireland, Intel Ireland, KBC Bank Ireland, KPMG, Marks & Spencer Ireland Ltd, MSD, Musgrave, Roadbridge, RTÉ, Tesco Ireland, Three.
The Business Impact Map which can be viewed online at www.bitc.ie captures statistics from 56 of Ireland’s largest companies that are members of Business in the Community Ireland, Ireland’s leading organisation on corporate responsibility and sustainability.Statistics for Tipperary show that over €93,109 was given in cash donations; €214,361 was contributed through in-kind donations and €88,883 was raised through employee fundraising. Employees also volunteered over 1958 hours to local groups and projects during the year.
Nationally, the figures for 2016 represent an increase on 2015 with employee volunteering rising 5 per cent and a 15 per cent increase in combined cash donations, in-kind and employee fundraising provided by companies to local groups.
Increasingly, employees want to work with companies who have values that align with their own and they also expect companies to engage with community groups as standard.
Business in the Community Ireland Chief Executive, Tina Roche, commented on the key trends in company engagement with their local communities, “The biggest trend we are seeing is the rise of employees using their skills to help communities. For example construction companies are helping local community groups with refurbishment projects or IT companies are offering coding workshops and mentoring. The huge gain for the community groups is that they are getting access to knowledge and technical skills that otherwise might not be available or affordable to them”.
Employees volunteered over 227,000 hours in 2016 alone, equivalent to 145 people working full-time in the charity and voluntary sector.
Roche continued “However community engagement is just one component of corporate social responsibility. Companies must also look at how they also engage with their own employees, customers, suppliers the environment and more.”
According to a 2016 study by Cone Communications, 88% of millennials say they find their employment more fulfilling when they have opportunities to make a positive impact on social and environmental issues. In addition, 83% would be more loyal to a company that helps them contribute to social and environmental issues. Roche concluded “For any companies looking to attract, engage and retain employees, they must look at all of their social and environmental responsibilities. When it comes to social responsibilities, one particular avenue available is to support employee involvement in community and social issues. We know that authentic community involvement contributes to key business goals, improves reputation and helps attract and retain employees.”
Nationally, the areas of health, community and poverty were the best supported. Over €10m was donated to health with a further €6m being donated to communities and another €2.9 going towards aiding poverty. Elsewhere, education, children and youth and homelessness received sizeable contributions. More than €3.5 was donated to education, another €2.2m was donated to children and youth and €1.8m to homelessness.