Corporate social donations begin to take root in the Czech lands… slowly.

By Tereza Regnerová and Eva Munková

You hear a few vague mentions of it now and then. You can find a paragraph or two on it in large corporations’ annual reports. Human resources departments may mention it in passing to new employees. But serious CSR (corporate social responsibility) is only now beginning to grow firm roots in the Czech Republic.

Corporate social responsibility is more than a corporation tossing some cash to the local  football club or funding a new serving line in the local school cafeteria. It’s a company’s strong commitment to the idea that it has a social obligation to the community where it is seated, and to the communities where it does business.

Only now are some Czech corporations starting to grasp the idea that CSR is also a smart business strategy. A wellthought- out, communicative, sincere CSR program can earn more customer loyalty than the most expensive and detailed public relations program. And that can be a key component of long-term business success in a market where the competition is growing fangs.

Some of the country’s largest, most traditional corporations are involved in some pretty surprising CSR projects. For example, Česká Spořitelna sponsors Sananim, which helps drug addicts, and it gives financial support to Drop In drug treatment centers and asylum homes for drug-dependent mothers. It also sponsors Václav and Livia Klaus’s project “Communicating Seniors,” which teaches senior citizens to use the internet.

The Leontinka Foundation, which works with blind children, is fully sponsored by the Eurolux lighting company, and the O2 Foundation has focused its efforts on eradicating bullying in schools. Sazka Lottery gives one million crowns per year to the Czech Bone Marrow Bank.

Ivo Schott is the director of the Preciosa Foundation, founded in 1993 by the Jablonec-based glass maker, Preciosa a.s., whose costume jewelry and chandeliers are known all over the world. Preciosa Foundation is one of the oldest in the country, and the Preciosa Foundation has donated over 200 million Kč over the past 15 years to some 2,000 beneficial projects. The Foundation has seven separate funds for medicine, education, culture, research, environment, sports, and humanitarian and social projects, such as aid in areas afflicted by flooding in Moravia in 1997 and 2002. Donations range from a few thousand crowns for a sit-down shower for a senior-citizens’ home, to several hundred thousand crowns for the restoration of the medieval Vladislavova Bible.

Schott describes the difference between the small donors and those with a fully-developed CSR program. “Most of the time when a company starts its own foundation, it only has the ability to fund smaller local projects like school sports or such,” he says. “That’s not the way we want ours to work. It should be a more permanent organization which gives financial support to multiple, and not just one, beneficial projects or activities over a long period of time – like the Nobel Foundation,” he says.

“I think we have succeeded in not just shutting ourselves away in the Liberec region, and that we have a broader statewide sweep.” But Schott explains that it is easier to judge the effectiveness of local projects. “If you support local projects, you have a chance to get to know them and you know who’s doing good work and who isn’t.”

According to Klára Šplíchalová, spokeswoman for the Civic Donors Association, the Czech Republic is one of the best-organized countries in Central Europe in terms of giving, and the amount of money donated to charity every year by individuals and corporations is rising. Significantly, companies are trying more than ever to involve employees in their charities; and even the trend to give workers time off to volunteer in non-profit organizations is growing.

Mohammed goes to the mountain

In at least one case, the donor didn’t even wait for the corporate mountain to come around knocking for donations. Ivan Drbohlav, general manager of Mountfield, the garden furniture and equipment company, offered the management of the Divadlo Na Jezerce (Na Jezerce Theater) a general sponsorship agreement on his own initiative.

“Mr. Drbohlav saw a few of our productions and offered a partnership to us himself,” says theater director Jan Hrušinský, adding that Mountfield’s contribution helps keep the quality of the plays at a high niveau and gives him the chance to work with the best in the business. “We don’t put all our faith in City Hall and, in addition to our general partner Mountfield, we also have a few other, smaller, partners. And thanks to high attendance and careful management, we are not in debt and we can continue to produce high-quality theater.”

Former foundation free-for-all

The new appreciation for the all-round value of CSR is helping to fill the gap created by forty years of communism. In the 1950s, the regime shut down all foundations, with the
exception of the “Nadání” Foundation of Josef, Marie and Zdenka Hlávka, which is said to have survived only because it had supported Zdeněk Nejedlý, an avid supporter of the
Communist regime and Director of the Academy of Sciences.

New rules came into being after the Velvet Revolution. In the early 1990s, explains Preciosa Foundation’s Schott, the situation resembled a free-for-all, with thousands of tiny and completely unmanageable foundations springing up all over the country. A law on foundations, passed in 1997, changed that.

“It was pretty brutal to the small foundations, and a lot of them had to close,” he says, but he points out that the purpose of the law was to make foundations more stable than the
hundreds of small one-off collection projects which weren’t all that effective.

 Awards distinguish donors

In order to encourage individuals and companies to give, and continue giving, since 2000 the Czech Maecenas Club has been giving out its annual Ď (for Děkuji) prizes to individuals
and organizations for their charitable works. The club is named after Caius Cilnius Maecenas, a diplomat in ancient Rome, who gained renown for his sponsorship of Rome’s upand- coming poets.

This year, 13 Czech Maecena’s received the cut-glass trophy for their charitable works (see box.)

The Czech Republic’s most famous Maecena was the architect and builder Josef Hlávka, who gave 100 goldcrowns every year to the Czech author Josef Václav Sládek to continue translating the works of Shakespeare into Czech.

But Hlávka’s charitable impulses went further than that. In his will, dated January 4, 1904, he deeded his entire fortune to the “uplifting and sustainment” of the Czech nation in hopes that “The Highest Ruler of all men and nations will take this ‘Foundation,’ its tasks and goals, most mercifully under His all-powerful protection, protect it from all evil,
and not allow it to end in disaster.” Far from disaster, the “Nadání” of Josef, Marie, and Zdenka Hlávka today is worth two billion crowns.

The 2008 Czech Maecenas Awards for charitable work

Autocont CZ a.s., for computer support at the National Theater
Nadace DRAK, Dr. Altenburg – Kohl, for buying a musical instrument for a concert maestro of the National Theater Orchestra
Mountfield, a.s., for support of the Na Jezerce Theater
Česko-Německý Fond Budoucnosti, for help in improving Czech-German relations
Sudenti Gymnázia Luďka Pika, Plzeň, for environmental projects

Ingbau CZ, s.r.o., for supporting vaccination for 50 Afghan children against Hepatitis A
Nowaco Czech Republic, s.r.o., for support of the Prague Zoo

Věra Vlachová, for adoption of seven animals at the Prague Zoo

Stanislav Gregor, for support and free advisory services at the Vyškov Zoo

Roren Skole Roren Skole, a school in Hokksund, Norway, for partnership projects with Czech schools

Jan Pikna, director of the International Opera Festival in Litomyšl, for propagation of Czech music

Jiří Pán, for work with children’s homes

Prof. MUDr. Oskar Andrysek, DrSc., for research
and treatment of cancer