Corporate Social Responsibility or are NGOs Selling Out?

You may be wondering what made me all of the sudden begin to share my thoughts with the blogosphere. Well, it all started yesterday afternoon. My project design class took an interesting turn with the instructor began a lecture on the pros and cons of NGOs partnering with corporations. Of course, the positive benefits for NGOs and corporations are obvious. The corporation partners with a well known charity, and gets good press for their "philanthropic" acts or donations. How sweet. Consumers and shareholders alike can sleep at night knowing that the corporation they support is doing "their part". Since stockholders and consumers are happy, the corporation makes profit. The NGO in turn, now has corporate funding that they would have never been able to come up with on their own. Everybody wins.

Or do they? Call me old fashioned, but I didn't pursue an education in international development and human rights, just to give up all of my principles and forget everything I learned in school for a few thousand dollars. What ever happened to neutrality? NGOs working in the feild are not supposed to take sides in a military conflict. But with today's globalized world, there are so many communities involved in complex conflicts with big name corporations. Why is it suddenly ok (if not encouraged) for aid workers to take jobs with big corporation's charitable projects? What is not being said here?!

My instructor explained that the job market is not looking good for young development practitioners entering into the non-profit sector. So we should all go work for Haliburton or Coke instead? I don't get the connection here.

Take Coke's recent partnership with World Wildlife Fund. We've all seen the commercials. Coke is donating 2 million dollars to WWF over five years for a "transformative partnership to conserve water". Are you kidding me!? That's like an organization that works with children who've been molested being sponsored by a known pedophile. Unless you've completely been living under a rock, you probably know that Coca Cola is one of the biggest contributors to our planet's depleting fresh water resources. According to a recent article from the Economist, it takes 2.72 liters of water to make one liter of coke. Many communities around the world are running out of water because Coke plants are drying them right out. Don't believe me? Read this article from the Guardian about Coke's great "water conservation" in India. All the water issues aside, Coke has also run into trouble as union leaders working for their bottling plants in South America keep turning up dead, if they even do turn up. Many union leaders keep magically disappearing and never return to their families. What a coincidence I guess. Ray Rogers' organization "Killer Coke" does an excellent job at lobbying consumers to cut out Coke and honour the memory of all those who have died "mysteriously".

I simply cannot see myself working for a campaign such as Coke & WWF's water campaign. Hopefully, eventually more people will agree with me that you never have to stoop that low to make ends meet. That is why there are OTHER jobs in the for profit sector. I would rather be a bartender or a receptionist again than work for a charity funded by Coke or any other giant evil corporation. Just saying.