My 2005 IPF Fellowship Research Topic is 

Corporate Social Responsibility in the Romanian Higher Education 

There are 5 main initiatives supporting CSR and corporate volunteerism in Romania, which will be presented in this section, starting with the wider initiatives of promoting CSR generally and continuing with the specific initiative focused on corporate volunteerism only.

Initiative 1: CSR Conference

The first initiative to promote CSR concept and practice has been launched by the American Chamber of Commerce in Romania in October 2002 with the first edition of the CSR Conference held in Bucharest. The American Chamber of Commerce in Romania (the "American Chamber" or "AmCham") is a non-profit organization founded in 1993 by American investors in Romania, with membership open to American companies, multinationals, and local companies having strong business ties with the United States. It is one of 86 international AmChams in 76 countries affiliated with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce based in Washington, D.C. and is a member of the European Council of the American Chambers of Commerce, a networking body of similar organizations across Europe. (The information is excerpted from www.amcham.ro. For more information please refer to the mentioned source.) The main purpose of the CSR Conference is to highlight the initiatives of AmCham members in the field of CSR, to present international and European standards in the field and to discuss the main trends on the subject, along with involving Romanian companies in common projects related to CSR. Besides spreading the information to a wide number of businesses which are either members or collaborators of AmCham or their members, the CSR conference has also contributed to bring the CSR issue on the public agenda, having as participants the representatives of the central government, acknowledging the importance of integrating CSR into the way business sector operates in Romania.

Initiative 2: CSR Page in Capital Magazine

The second initiative related to promoting CSR concept and practice in Romania belongs to the Open Society Foundation and their partner, Capital Magazine. The project was initiated in 2003 by the Open Society Foundation in order to promote CSR among the readers of Capital Magazine, which is a business oriented publication reaching up to 60,000 people. The Open Society Foundation prepares the articles on CSR for which Capital Magazine offers one page for publishing it, along with counseling in subject choosing and editing support through its staff. The purpose of this project is to offer models and examples of best practices in CSR to companies and businesspersons reading Capital Magazine and to stimulate business engagement in CSR related projects by highlighting their impact in the community and their benefits for all the parties involved. Among the subjects presented by now in the CSR page of Capital Magazine we find debates about whether social responsibility of businesses affects their profits, social promotion of products increases the sales, the fiscal laws in Romania do not encourage philanthropic engagement of the companies, social entrepreneurship as the main 21^st century trend and others. In the July 2003 edition of the CSR Page, the manager of a communication company in Romania was acknowledging the importance of education in the spirit of giving-back-to-the community:

“When you have a job in an important company, a salary above the average and a nice office, you sometimes forget what is going on around you. This is why developing a foundation within a company offers an organized and institutionalized environment for philanthropy and an excellent opportunity to educate the employees in the spirit of social responsibility.” (Capital, Nr. 28, July 10, 2003)

The program has been recognized with the Jury’s Special Award at the 2004 edition of People for People Gala, which is the third initiative to be presented below.

Initiative 3: People for People Awards Gala

The third initiative is a partnership between the American Chamber of Commerce and the Association for Community Relations, which is at its second edition this year. The CSR Awards Ceremony People for People Gala (The information is excerpted from www.arcromania.ro. For more information please refer to the mentioned source.)  is an event dedicated to awarding the philanthropic contributions through donations and/or sponsorships, volunteering activities and fund raising projects developed by both for-profits and not-for-profits. The event offered awards on several categories: * Donations and sponsorships from companies; * Donations and sponsorships from individuals; * Organizational fund raising campaigns; * Individuals coordinating fund raising campaigns; * Public volunteering campaigns; * Corporate volunteering programs; * Community programs of companies; * Community marketing campaigns; * Community development programs.

The first edition (held on May 28^th 2003) gathered over 100 nominated programs from over 80 companies. The second edition (held on June 10^th 2004) had 90 nominated programs with a higher complexity, the total value of the nominated projects reaching 6.5 million Euro.

Initiative 4: Win-Win Corporate Volunteerism Initiative

The fourth initiative presented in this section is focused specifically on promoting the concept and practice of corporate volunteerism in Romania: The Win-Win Corporate Volunteerism Program developed by Pro Vobis National Volunteer Center. The program has three main components.  

1) Training of a team of brokers for engaging local companies in addressing local community problems. The training session had been held by specialists from the Points of Light Foundation in Washington DC, the project partners. The training session covered topics relevant to developing the skills of the trainees to promote both the concept and practice of corporate volunteerism: 8 An introduction to corporate volunteerism: the concept, the key players; * The advantages for the businesses, the employees, the community and the volunteer center; * ABCs of building and evaluating an employee volunteerism project; * The role of volunteer centers in the development of corporate volunteerism.

2) The second component of the Win-Win Program was the development of resources to be used in the efforts of promoting the concept and practice of corporate volunteerism. There were drafted several informative leaflets about CSR and corporate volunteerism and the web site of the program -  www.win-win.ro - has been created. The web site is addressed to employers interested in developing corporate volunteerism programs, offering a wide range of information, resources, case studies and press coverage of corporate volunteerism in Romania and worldwide. It is developed as both an information and education tool. The web site also presents the services offers launched by Win-Win Corporate Volunteerism Program. Another category of resources generated as part of this program is a number of practical guides and publications of how to develop corporate volunteerism programs, the steps to be followed for a successful program and the advantages for all the parties involved. The publications are authorized translations of publications in the field from the Points of Light Foundation.   

3) The third dimension of the Win-Win program is to develop model community projects of corporate volunteerism based on the expertise acquired by the trainees and using the set of resources created in the project. The practical component is currently under development.

Initiative 5: CSR related projects developed by companies in Romania

The winners of the 2003 edition of the People for People Gala are available att the following link: http://www.arcromania.ro/web%20eng/galareport.htm#thewinners Details about the programs may be obtained from the company.

Note: Excerpts from Nicolescu, C. 2002. Corporate Volunteerism as a Community Development Tool. Unpublished MA Thesis. Cluj Napoca: Babes-Bolyai University