Outreach to the immediate neighbourhood

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AN enterprise cannot limit the scope of its social responsibility to its external value chain or the industry/ sector to which it belongs. It also needs to think of its immediate neighbourhood: how it can help clean it up, make it a bit more functional, and perhaps a bit more “green.”

Such concern for the immediate neighbourhood gives a concrete and specific expression for the enterprise--with a governance and transformation program to sustain---to take on the added “social duty” to improve and upgrade its immediate surrounding physical environment. This would entail:

Having to reach out to the few other establishments in the neighbourhood, and to forge an alliance with them for the physical improvement of a well-defined area. A few common, sensible rules may be proposed to the alliance; certain maintenance standards of physical facilities can be agreed upon; and where opportunities are open, for joint improvements that can be somewhat more coordinated such that the entire area can be rehabilitated, rejuvenated, or spruced up, then those opportunities can be exploited.

The area covered may well be limited, depending on the openness to cooperate among the establishments in the area. An initial outreach initiative may cover only a street where the enterprise facilities are located; the other enterprises on the same street can be invited to form an alliance for the physical area development of the street. Once visible gains have been attained, it may be possible to expand the area of coverage, again depending on the cooperation of other establishments in a zone or district.

This brings up the need to work together with the local government unit. Where the LGU is open to endorsing and assisting such initiatives, or better still where the LGU has its own governance and transformation program, then public-private sector cooperation can be forged. The alliance can then include a few more private enterprises, preferably those with a social responsibility commitment, and the local government unit itself.

In undertaking this social responsibility initiative, pitched towards the physical improvement of a given area, zone, or district, it is necessary for the enterprise to task a volunteer team from within the enterprise that would take this on. Such a team need not be very big; but it is important for members of the team to have close, positive social inter-action with key leaders in the local community, particularly those who may own the establishments located in the area, zone, or district.

Furthermore, since this has such a strategic importance for the governance program of the enterprise, it may also be necessary to involve a select committee of the enterprise’s MSGC, and get it to oversee actual performance delivered and substantive progress being attained in this regard.

The key consideration concerning this initiative is that it be initiated; it may have to start with small, limited objectives (e.g. focus on a given street, preferably where the enterprise offices and working spaces are located). Progress may be slow at the start; but as any governance program demands, a long-term perspective must be thrown in. Once that perspective is contributed, then patience and persistence become two of the key ingredients for eventual success of this initiative.