This paper has two objectives. The first is to introduce the Shell Foundation and its way of working. The second is to offer up insights drawn from our experience as a contribution to the wider debate on how the private sector and the International Development Community (IDC) can most effectively catalyse equitable, self-sustaining development in poor countries (see annex 1).
The Shell Foundation is new – established by Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Companies as a UK charity in June 2000 – and a little different. Unlike many corporate foundations, the Shell Foundation focuses on social issues aligned to the core characteristics of our founder – an energy major and a multinational group of companies (MNC).
Thus we address social problems arising from the links between energy and poverty, energy and the environment and the impact of globalisation on vulnerable communities.
In addition, while set up as a grant-making charity, the Shell Foundation believes the application of business principles and business thinking can be very useful in tackling social problems, especially the challenges of overcoming poverty in developing countries. Hence we tend to act more like an investor in deciding where and how to allocate our commitments of time and money. We also expect our partners to act more like entrepreneurs and businesses in the pursuit of their social and charitable objectives.
Finally, and because of our focus on energy issues, we’re exploring ways of harnessing what we call the ‘value-creating’ assets of one of the largest international energy majors, the Shell Group, to advance our charitable objectives. We could not do this if our issues were traditional corporate philanthropy concerns of health, education or culture.
Moreover, because the Shell Group has long been present in many developing countries, we have ready access to practical experience and ‘local’
knowledge on enterprise–poverty issues simply not available to the majority of IDC actors – donors in particular. Taken together this means we are able to bring ‘more than money’ to the table when seeking strategic partners and working with them to develop and implement viable, scalable solutions to the social problems we target.
Of course, the Shell Foundation is still young and our track record relatively limited. However, our work to date tackling poverty in developing countries is throwing up intriguing challenges – not only for the Foundation Board and its staff,1 our founders, the Royal Dutch/Shell and our partners – but more widely for practitioners concerned with international development and corporate social responsibility (CSR).
In Section 1 we set the stage for exploring these challenges by reinforcing a case for putting ‘propoor enterprise’ more at the heart of the efforts by the IDC and big business to help poor people escape poverty (see annex 1). In Section 2, we describe the core features of the approach taken by Shell Foundation to pursue this goal. Section 3 uses case study material to illustrate our way of working and the outcomes being achieved. Finally, in Section 4, we distil our experience into a set of propositions for wider debate and consideration by the international development and business communities.
To learn more about this author, visit Shell Foundation's Website.
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Shell Foundation
(Visit Shell's Website)
The Shell Foundation is established to
support efforts to achieve a balance
between economic growth, care for the
environment and equitable social
development - the goal of sustainable
development.
The Foundation's focus on sustainable
development is based upon the Shell
Group's belief that the long-term health
and prosperity of societies of which it is
part, and its own future, depends on the
ability of all stakeholders, worldwide, to
attain such balance.
However, as one of the most significant
international oil and energy groups, Shell
recognises the global dimension of many
sustainability issues related to its
activities. It believes it has a
responsibility and an opportunity to play
its part in addressing these issues.
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