Des Ryan doesn’t have a lot of time for charities that blame businesses for society’s ills or see them as nothing more than a source of cash (Carly Chynoweth writes). “Some pile in and woo a business until they are named its charity of the year — then it’s get the money, disappear and hop into bed with another business,” the chief executive of Edinburgh Cyrenians said. “Others have a Robin Hood mentality that businesses are the nasty capitalists who created all this unfairness.”
A more effective approach is to build relationships that give charities ongoing access not to businesses’ cash but to the expertise of their staff, he said. The homelessness charity’s longstanding policy is to work with and learn from the private sector; he also sees it as playing a crucial part in society’s wellbeing, not least as an employer.
Thus he jumped at the chance to host two participants in the PwC Responsible Leadership Programme last year and another three this year. “What I got from it was unbelievable consultancy from PwC people who went out with our people coming back to me saying: ‘This is what I observed.’ They looked at what we do with fresh eyes, which gave us confirmation that what we hoped was happening, was happening.”
Many PwC partners continued to offer advice and assistance long after the formal commitment ended. For example, Mr Ryan is looking at how to take advantage of the Scottish Government’s commitment to divert all business food waste away from landfill within three years. Cyrenians runs three social enterprises, all of which help to support and train homeless people to find work. One of them, Core, is a food recycling business that uses waste food as a source of green energy.
“We are doing some redesign of its business plan because of this opportunity,” he said, “and we have been sending business plans down to get advice and feedback from our PwC friends, who in turn have been tapping into other expert advice that they have to hand.”