“…For a gift to be genuinely altruistic in nature, that is, for it to demonstrate other-centered love, it must have benefit to the recipient as its primary motive and purpose, but not necessarily its only motivation or purpose. Therefore, strategic or “smart” giving may be regarded as ethical.”
At first glance, the statement above may come off as offensive to some, as it is easy to confuse bribery with strategic gift giving—especially in today’s society. Before understanding how generating positive PR through charitable donations is most definitely and ethical practice, one must understand the difference between the two. Unlike bribery, the motives that lye behind strategic gift giving are mainly focused on helping to present a donor or philanthropist, in a good light to publics, as opposed to bribery whose gift giving efforts are merely an attempt to coerce a recipient or audience to act in favor of whomever is doing the bribing.
That being said a great deal of organizations or companies have taken advantage of this particular PR tactic.
Home Depot, for instance, whose Volunteers (employees) use materials from their stores to build homes for Habitat for Humanity. Not only does this help to build and maintain a positive image for the company, it may also help increase traffic in Home Depot stores by attracting customers that want to help support a company that they know will give back to the community, all of which resulting in increased sales for the chain.
Another example of a company that uses strategic gift giving to help boost their image is Exxon/Mobile, whose corporate logo features a Tiger, which happens to be the animal that they donate large sums to help protect. Though this may be a more subtle way of going about employing the strategic gift giving tactic, those who are aware of Exxon/Mobile’s contributions may be more inclined to become a customer of the company, simply because they feel they may play a part in helping to secure a place for tigers and their environments in this world.
This particular tactic has proven itself to be so helpful in attracting positive publicity, companies like Wal-Mart, who has over the years earned a reputation for being damaging to communities and local economies, have begun to re-focus its charity to give it more punch. Named America’s No. 1 corporate donor in 2008, Wal-Mart traditionally handing out thousands of small checks to Scout troops, food pantries and other local causes in Wal-Mart towns from coast to coast, is now focusing more of its charity on a short list of national issues on which the company believes it can have real impact and correlates with some of their values, such as the “going green” trend.
For more info on Strategic Gift Giving in the world of PR...watch this!
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