Company issue

The company I work for sponsors a charity and wanted two representatives to visit the area in Africa where the charity operates. I was one of those ppl and part of the deal was to come back and inform everyone of the good work the charity does. It was an amazing experience and people from the charity wanted to do talks at the company etc. of which me and the other representatives were very enthusiastic about, I was asked to write two pieces about the experience for the company which I spent a lot of time over , both haven’t been used and generally it has been very quiet about the whole thing. Today everyone found out they are holding a company vote as to which charity we should support next year. So may not even continue supporting the current charity. I am a bit annoyed about how they have communicated everything to us and not sure what I should do?

Not saying it’s the best option, but I’d probably think it’s a shame and forget about it. If it bothered me a lot, I’d probably start looking for a new job.

That is probably what I will do. But they have kind of led the charity and me and the other representative down the garden path. You go and see what the charity does and it really was amazing, you come back full of enthusiasm and wanting to explain what a good cause the charity is, Ppl at the charity are keen to do presentations and then there is silence from the management. It just not very good way to operate is it?

Yeah, and the fact that you actually went out there gives you the emotional attachment too. I totally sympathise and think it’s a proper shitty situation. Do you know why there’s the change? Is there anyone you can talk to in an effort to try and find out what the reasoning is behind it? It might still be shitty, but at least then you have some context.

This kind of thing happens all the time. Someone makes a decision somewhere, doesn’t bother to communicate it to everyone and doesn’t really consider how that makes people feel. Don’t take it personally. Just hang on to the fact that you got a really good experience out of it I guess?

You do need to find out what happened to your work though for your own piece of mind. They owe you that much.

also tell the MD his favourite rock/pop star is dead - that will shake things up.

That’s exactly what’s happened. Part of me feels I should be or should have been a bit more thick skinned and pushy as soon as I returned from the trip. Rather than have been passive aggressive.

You never know though - they might carry on supporting it and your pieces could get put up. From what you wrote, it doesn’t sound like the ship has sailed quite yet.

There’s probably a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes that you don’t know about - it could be that your company sponsors the charity because your MD was pals with another of their big donors that he knows from the golf club, but now they’ve fallen out. Or maybe they want to switch to a dementia charity because the CEO’s grandmother has Alzheimer’s.

Whatever the reason, don’t take it personally - life’s too short.

Equally, though, they might vote to continue to support the incumbent charity? It’s an important part of CSR that companies regularly review their charitable giving (otherwise new entrants to the sector can never get off the ground).

It would have been good if someone had warned you that it was coming up to review time, though. Bad comms innit.

That is a good point and I feel like the have treated the whole processes very cynically.