Ernst & Young | IBM | Pfizer | Proctor & Gamble

Accounting for and Managing Donations

Guidelines and tools can help make sure that large charitable donations are distributed and used properly

Ernst & Young’s Indonesia practice was touched and overwhelmed by the significant financial and in-kind donations that poured in from clients and partners following the December 2004 tsunami. However, the financial services company also became concerned with ensuring donors that their money, goods, and services would be properly regulated. Ernst & Young decided to use its management and accountability skills to tackle this issue both for itself and for other companies dealing with the same concern.

Through a team of 16 people, the company developed the "EYe Toolkit" to help organizations establish proper systems of accountability and control when managing humanitarian aid. The downloadable Toolkit is aimed at all groups that either fund or deliver aid, including donor corporations, non-government and not-for-profit organizations, local governments and affected communities. It provides recommendations for how organizations should manage various process areas, including budget preparation, inventory management and reporting. For each area, the Toolkit describes action steps, personnel involved and potential roadblocks.

The Toolkit was well received by organizations, with a total of 3,000 downloads to date. One NGO partner noted that “by applying the concepts of proper procedure and control from the EYe Toolkit, we’ve been able to extend the amount of work we’ve done in our communities by minimizing the amount of monies lost through corruption and inefficiencies.”

The EYe Toolkit remains available for download and free distribution on the Ernst & Young Web site (EYe Toolkit), and has been adapted to address similar concerns in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Yogjakarta earthquake and the Java tsunami.

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Getting The Most From an In-Kind Donation

Businesses can maximize the impact of their in-kind donations by taking a comprehensive look at the situation in which they are used

When Hurricane Katrina left thousands of children without a functioning school to attend, IBM decided to help make sure their education was uninterrupted and even enhanced. “IBM worked with the Gulf Coast school districts to find out their specific recovery needs and determine how we could provide effective, action-oriented support,” said Stanley S. Litow, Vice President, Corporate Community Relations. “In-kind donations from big businesses can be a great resource in times of disaster, but they’re effective only if they meet the recipients’ needs and if the donor follows through with proper customization, set-up, and training.”

The company provided hundreds of desktop computers and KidSmart Young Explorers learning stations to schools that were accepting large numbers of displaced students. To ensure proper usage of these new systems, IBM sent a team to set up the computers and work stations, train school personnel to use them, and give teachers information about how best to use technology to support learning in their classrooms.

IBM took a step further by working with trauma specialists to develop a guide to welcoming student evacuees into new classrooms, which showed educators how to recognize and respond to signs of serious trauma. IBM also offered customized training and support through the Reinventing Education Change Toolkit (www.reinventingeducation.org), which was used as the backbone tool for schools to manage the transition period. The company lent support to higher education as well, providing IT recovery assistance to Xavier and Dillard Colleges and developing a roadmap for enhancing each campus’s IT infrastructure. These education initiatives were a highlight of the $3.2 million in technology and services IBM donated to the gulf region after Hurricane Katrina.

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info@respondtodisaster.org

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Assessing and Following Up on Donations

By using a trusted NGO to assess need and following up on what is delivered, a company responding to a disaster can help ensure sound in-kind donations during a time of chaos

When the tsunami struck Indonesia in 2004, Pfizer received requests from many relief groups insisting that multiple medicines were needed at the disaster site. Before sending anything, Pfizer asked Project HOPE, one of its NGO partners, to assess what was needed.

Project HOPE sent in medical assessment teams to survey the devastation and evaluate medical shortages and staffing issues, ensuring that donated medicines, supplies and cash would be targeted to the needs of the local Indonesian healthcare communities. The result: it was clear that Indonesia mostly needed cash, not more medicines. Pfizer made sure that the medicines it did send to the areas affected by the tsunami (and later by the Indonesian earthquake) had ample dating and were distributed to affected hospitals.

"Coordination with the local medical communities and our corporate partners, like Pfizer, was critical for the successful delivery of emergency aid to Indonesia," said Pat Bacuros, Director of In-Kind Giving, Project HOPE. "In the aftermath of the tsunami, Project HOPE was confident that our aid would get to where it was needed most because of our experience in the region and its people."

Later, when Project HOPE followed up on the donations, it discovered that some antibiotics were sitting unused. With the extensive help of Project HOPE, the Pfizer corporate offices in Indonesia were able to redistribute the antibiotics to hospitals that could use them.

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Recovering and Rebuilding, Starting with Employees

Employee relief efforts can serve as a symbol of hope for an entire community

With four coffee facilities located in the New Orleans area, including its Folgers brand coffee plant, consumer products company Procter & Gamble (P&G) began relief efforts immediately for its 554 local employees and their families in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. After ensuring the safety of employees, the company sought to help them reestablish their lives and careers.

P&G offered $5,000 interest-free loans to affected families, and worked with FEMA to provide a temporary housing area, known as “Gentilly Village,” in the parking lot of one of the plants. Recreation and dining facilities helped employees’ families feel more at ease in their new accommodations.

In addition, an employee relief fund provided $650,000 in grants to employees to aid in rebuilding their lives, as well as more than $400,000 in grants to local New Orleans organizations.

On September 17, 2005, the Folgers plant became the first major business to resume operations after the hurricane. President George W. Bush, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin visited the plant soon after to emphasize that recovery was underway in the region. The Folgers brand partnered with the American Red Cross to display the Red Cross logo on new Folgers cans along with information about the relief agency’s disaster relief fund.

“The return to full operations at our Folgers plant is a testimony to the dedication and hard work of our plant employees,” said Doug McGraw, Vice President, Global Coffee for P&G. “At the same time, our employees’ well-being and safety has always been our priority and we remain committed to assisting them in returning to New Orleans and rebuilding their lives.”

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