Centre for Public Engagement Mapping corporate philanthropy and community engagement in east London: A research report Johanna Wadsley, Cathy McIlwaine, Jane Wills, Alastair Owens and Alison Blunt School of Geography, Queen Mary University of London October 2013 Contents Acknowledgements 2 Executive summary 3 Introduction 5 The Key Players: Corporations, communities and mediating institutions Corporations 7 The community view 13 Mediating institutions 17 CSR in east London: (historical) geography matters 19 Sustainable partnerships between corporations and communities 23 Economic downturn and partnerships 25 Conclusion 26 Appendix 29 References 30 1 Acknowledgements This project was made possible with funding from the Centre for Public Engagement at Queen Mary University of London to whom we are really grateful. We would like to thank Charlotte Rogers, Melanie Goldsmith and Jon Lloyd who helped us disseminate information about the survey. We are also grateful to Ed Oliver from the School of Geography who drew the maps and produced the cover. Finally, our thanks go to everyone who participated in the research and who remain anonymous. Cover photograph by Cathy McIlwaine 2 Executive summary This research analyses the evolving relationships between corporations based at Canary Wharf and east London communities over the past 20 years through a focus on corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. Corporations are deeply engaged in the well-being of communities in east London, particularly in education, training and the mentoring of young people. But there are significant risks, particularly around sustainability, the selectivity of corporate initiatives and wider economic uncertainty. The key players Corporations • Whilst the CSR remit of companies at Canary Wharf is national and global, companies are involved in a wide range of CSR work in east London. • Key CSR activities include financial contributions, pro bono services and allocated staff time for volunteering and mentoring. • Working with younger people is the main priority for companies, with an emphasis on education, training and access to employment. • CSR benefits companies in six main ways: o Recruitment of the best graduates o Opportunities for employee development o The potential diversification of staff o Fostering ‘responsible’ corporate culture o Improving client relations o The position and brand of the business • CSR activities are increasingly targeted on particular areas with measurable outcomes to evaluate their impact. Communities • After initial hostility to the development of Canary Wharf, community organizations in east London now work closely with a range of companies to access CSR resources. • Long-term strong partnerships have developed. • Community organizations value their engagement with companies not only in financial terms but also in changing the perceptions and aspirations of people living in east London. • Corporate-community engagement is not risk-free. Mediating institutions • Key brokering organizations are the East London Business Association (ELBA), the East End Community Foundation, Newham and Tower Hamlets Education Business Partnerships, and City Link. 3 • Such organizations highlight the needs of the community, act as intermediaries to foster and manage corporate-community relations, help to place volunteers, and assist in recruiting local people for employment in certain sectors such as cleaning. • Their role has changed over time, with brokering organizations now delivering their own projects alongside facilitating the links between corporations and communities. CSR in east London • The juxtaposition of rich and poor is stark in east London, reinforcing a moral duty among companies and other actors to act. This echoes Victorian philanthropy. • Community organizations avoid controversial companies and those not involved for mutual and long-term benefit. • CSR work in east London offers corporations opportunities for progressive engagement with diversity. • The spatial scope of CSR centres on Tower Hamlets and the ‘inner’ or ‘old’ east end. Sustainable partnerships between corporations and communities • The move towards more targeted activities can have a detrimental effect on community organizations • The increasing requirement to measure the outcomes of partnerships is challenging for some community organizations. • Sustainability is affected by the role of specific individuals within companies who champion particular causes and projects. • Companies are not always willing or able to address the most pressing issues affecting east London, especially in relation to immigration and poverty. • But there are also long and sustainable relationships that can generate innovation. Economic downturn and partnerships • Despite some reduction in volunteering numbers because of workforce redundancies, CSR remains active and positive in east London. • Economic downturn has increased needs such as youth unemployment and legal aid. • Community organizations hope that long-term and embedded relationships with companies can bridge the shortfall in state funding and meet increasing demand. 4 Introduction In just over 20 years Canary Wharf has grown to become a thriving business centre in the heart of east London. The Wharf now employs 100,000 people and is home to some of the largest banks and financial and legal services companies in the world (Canary Wharf Group, 2013). The area is still expanding and plans are laid to continue this growth for the next 20 years. In its early years, the development attracted enormous controversy. At the local level, the strongest voices in the community resisted the arrival of corporate interests and the perceived lack of democratic control over the development. More generally, many academics and journalists saw the development as representing all that was wrong with the emerging political-economic agenda associated with Margaret Thatcher’s governments (Colenutt, 1991; Merrifield, 1993; Pile, 1995). Critics focused on the way that Government circumvented local democracy and planning controls to open up ground for business interests and they saw the development as a physical manifestation of the class conflict that was cleaving the soul of the nation. The communities that had given birth to some of the proudest triumphs in labour history – new unionism, the dock strike and the Poplar rates campaign – were becoming victims of a resurgent free-market capitalism over which they had no control. In many ways, such critics used Canary Wharf as a cipher for the ideological battles they were fighting over the evolution of national political-economic theory and practice, and it remains relatively easy to read Canary Wharf as emblematic of wider changes in society. Canary Wharf is a physical testament to the growing importance of finance and associated sectors in generating economic wealth in a global economy; to the growing numbers of professional and middle-class people who have moved to live in inner city locations; to the significance of multinational immigration at both ends of the labour market; and to the growing power of private investment and interests in shaping urban regeneration and infrastructure (Sassen, 1999; Hamnett, 2003; Wills et al, 2010). However, as a group of academics working very close to Canary Wharf, we wanted to revisit this dominant view of the Wharf and its conflict. Funded by Queen Mary’s Centre for Public Engagement, we designed a small research project to try to get a better insight into the 5 evolution of corporate-community relations over the past 20 years. To this end we have analysed corporate reports, conducted an online survey and undertaken 12 face-to-face interviews (see Appendix 1). This report documents the main findings of our research. In summary, our research has highlighted the extent to which corporate social responsibility (CSR) is taken extremely seriously by companies, community groups and other service providers and has become embedded in the life-blood of both companies and community groups in east London. Many corporations have developed strong relationships with local community organisations including schools and charities through a wide range of activities (see Figure 1). Over time, the individuals involved in these relationships have focused on identifying and serving their mutual interests: the companies have come to integrate community-based activities into their core business agenda, and so too, rather than being supplicant, community organisations have been able to access resources that help serve their goals and priorities. Figure 1: CSR activities in east London by companies based in Canary Wharf Source: Authors’ compilation of data provided by companies, brokers, official records and the Charity Commission 6 In addition, although a number of important new mediating institutions came into existence in the early days of the development in order to broker what were sometimes difficult relationships between the corporations and the community, over time, relationships have also developed independently and have multiplied (see Figure 2). The development of CSR has strengths and weaknesses for both parties and in what follows we document these developments before going on to explore their wider implications for the future development of east London. Figure 2: CSR activities in east London by two key mediating organisations Source: Authors’ compilation of data provided by companies, brokers, official records and the Charity Commission The Key Players: corporations,