How to become an empowering charity

Empowerment is when a person has power and control over their own lives. Striving towards the empowerment of all stakeholders within your work can help reduce the harm that may be unintentionally inflicted and move towards creating a culture where people can thrive and reach their full potential – making the world a better place and benefitting your organisation.

 

Having previously explored the ways that charities can empower their service users, we now discuss the ways that charities can have a more empowering impact on other stakeholders, from employees and those working in the supply chain to the general public.

 

 

Identify intended and unintended impacts

 

If you are a charity professional, you likely have a clear image of the intended impacts of your organisation: they are outlined in your mission statement and drive the work you do every day.

 

But perhaps less clear are your unintended impacts. The Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact is a great guiding framework for understanding potential social and environmental impacts in the areas of human rights, labour, environment, and anti-corruption. Using these, your charity can benchmark its activities and identify points for improvement in having a better impact overall.

 

 

Know what makes an empowering workplace

 

For an empowering workplace, Forbes highlights the benefits of autonomy and trust, as well as building mutual understanding and respect, and a culture of growth and resilience.

 

This also includes supporting employee wellbeing in the workplace, which can include creating a mental health and wellbeing policy, standing up to bullying, practicing transparency, helping to avoid burnout, and working with awareness of your team’s differing needs.

 

Giving employees the opportunity to have control over their work lives, their wellbeing at work, and their work-life balance ( through flexible and hybrid working, for example) are all good ways to center empowerment in the workplace.

 

 

Be aware of your supply chain

 

According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), more than 450 million people work in supply-chain related jobs, yet it is common for organisations for whom these goods are produced to lack visibility over the processes used to produce them.

 

Most businesses have visibility into their direct suppliers but begin to lose visibility when it comes to their suppliers’ suppliers, and so on.

 

In the charity sector, organisations often face inconsistent funding and budget constraints, issues with supply chains, outdated systems, and are affected by constantly changing economic and political conditions. These factors make it hard to achieve transparency within their supply chains.

 

Human Rights Watch explain the risks to human rights in supply chains, including labour rights violations, child labour, environmental damage and violations of the right to health, violations to the right to land, food, and water, and violations of International Humanitarian Law.

 

They state: “The people affected by human rights abuses in a company’s supply chain often belong to groups who have no realistic opportunities to call attention to these problems themselves, or secure a remedy.”

 

 

Work towards a transparent supply chain

 

To create more transparency, the Supply Chain Consulting Group recommends that charities learn from the corporate sector by producing a code of conduct “that suppliers must adhere to if they want to become a trusted partner.”

 

Cancer Research UK’s five-page Supplier Code of Conduct includes ethical standards, environmental standards, and business integrity.

 

Other methods of holding supply chains accountable include writing an ESG strategy, developing supplier evaluation criteria, agreeing ESG targets with suppliers, carrying out regular reviews, and motivating suppliers.

 

When it comes to improving environmental standards, Amy Moore, Sustainability Manager at Marie Curie, recommends that you “ask your suppliers what adaptations they can do to make your products or packaging more environmentally friendly”.

 

She says, “Working with your suppliers lets them know there is demand for low carbon alternatives and means they’ll focus on it”.

 

You can also use technology to work towards a more transparent supply chain. The supply chain platform tradecloud one explains that digital supply chains can help integrate ESG into their operations through increased transparency, improved supplier engagement, better data management, increased efficiency, and ability to communicate ESG performance to stakeholders.

 

Blockchain is also a technology that we may see improve supply chain transparency in the coming years. FTI Consulting states that the tool can help companies track raw materials from sustainable locations and trusted suppliers.

 

 

Understand the value of ESG

 

ESG (environmental, social, and governance) is a set of standards concerning environmental impact, diversity and inclusion, and financial renumeration of employees.

 

While most believe in making positive change for its own sake, charities are often limited by time and resources, meaning that their primary mission can eclipse other worthy considerations. But ESG is in fact also financially justified and can support your mission.

 

People are becoming increasingly conscious of the ethics surrounding their financial choices – whether that be in the goods and services they consume or the charities they support.

 

In their research about ESG and the charity sector, the finance firm RSM states that if organisations fall below society’s expectations for ESG, supporters will “readily move on”.

 

Nick Sladden, Head of Charities at the firm, commented: “It’s not much use if you’re a charity that does a lot of good if, for example, that same charity is a significant polluter.”

 

Due to this relationship with reputation, taking ESG seriously is financially justified as well as the most ethical decision.

 

By valuing ESG in your organisation, you can better empower those involved in your processes, including employees and those in the wider supply chain, as well as those you indirectly impact through your activities, for example through the environment.