Philanthropy and social responsibility

Key topic

There is personal gain and rewards to be claimed from being socially responsible, for volunteer work or from engaging in philanthropy. This lesson explains the financial benefits, but also focuses on the intangible benefits of this type of contribution, which has become a must-do for all of us, athletes or not.

Learning objectives

• Understand the concepts of philanthropy, volunteerism and social responsibility
• Develop a strategy to be involved in this kind of work
• Discover the benefits associated with different types of community/social service
• Be prepared to engage in such work

Philanthropy in sport

As discussed previously, in order to build a solid financial plan, you need to establish your personal mission and the legacy you want to leave behind. Sports have become one of the most popular global activities, attracting the attention of millions of people. This growth is producing influential and strong icons/ role-models that influence society greatly. Athletes serve as role models for the youth that follow the sport and admire their heroes.

Financial wealth and personal influence can be used towards positive social development and athletes have a long track record of aligning themselves with charitable causes, something that has become a standard part of their endorsement deals and an expectation from the athlete’s team management. An athlete’s influence or “endorsement” can quickly turn an otherwise unknown cause into an important, mainstream issue. Sports require discipline, passion and dedication, and athletes that excel at the highest levels of sport have the platform and opportunity to be able to inspire, motivate, and leverage their celebrity to make a difference in causes and issues that are important to them.

Let’s take the example of Manchester United and international soccer player Marcus Rashford. The English star, 23 years of age at the time, championed a campaign to end child food poverty in England in 2020 and extend the free school meal voucher scheme, which is a government scheme in England. Members of parliament originally voted against free school meals, that would affect around 1.3 million children. Thanks to the campaign by the English striker, the government eventually made a U-turn on their decision. The whole story gained international traction and became a front-page story in national media.

Athletes and charity – Ways of helping the less fortunate

Charity is important for all of us, as it allows us to take a step back from what we passionately do and share with those in need.  However, there are effective and less effective ways to engage in philanthropy and they need to be closely considered.  Good news is, there are already established athlete philanthropists out there who have set a path to pursuing charity the right way.  Examples include LeBron James, Cristiano Ronaldo, Serena Williams and Marcus Rashford. Of course, charity can take many forms, but there are fundamentals that need to be followed when athletes wish to give to the less fortunate.  Let’s observe the ways through which athletes can more effectively and more strategically give to those in-need so as to maximize the impact of their charity.

Before jumping into the ways of engaging onto charity, it’s important to discuss the means by which athletes pursue charity.  Athletes may formalize their charity efforts by establishing a foundation. As mentioned above, this is no recent news, charity foundations such as The LeBron James Family Foundation and Michael Phelps foundation have been around for years and they effectively serve their purpose. A main reason athletes establish foundations is because foundations help them build a legacy that ends up being more important than what they do in the field and keeps them ‘alive’ after they retire. In addition, foundations are being used as platforms to deliver a cause or a message that athletes wish to spread according to what they care about.

Of course, other than setting up a foundation, there is a multitude of ways of helping out the less fortunate like donating money to an already established and reputable foundation.  Below, we look into different ways through which athletes have pursued philanthropy:

1. A highly effective means of charity for athletes is to become an ambassador of a charity organization and follow the example set by Serena Williams.  The famous tennis player is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador who has been pursuing charity alongside UNICEF by building schools, helping promote breast cancer awareness and many more. Positioning herself as the ambassador of such an organization enables her to make an impact within that specific issue.
2. The most effective ways of charity, emerge from thinking in the context of a community rather than globally.  Many athletes, including soccer star Neymar Jr., have committed to improving the communities they’ve grown up in, making them a role model to their people.  Specifically, through his foundation, Neymar provides clean water to the Brazilian people while giving to thousands of disadvantaged kids in the Brazilian community. It might sound old-fashioned to think at a community level rather than the global level, but the truth is that it’s easier and more common to focus your charity towards helping the people that are going through hardships that you’ve had to go through. Giannis Antetokounmpo gives and does a lot for the neighborhood he grew up in Greece.  This not only fulfills the athlete’s need to help their community, but it also aligns well with good branding practices.

Finally, one of the most effective forms of charity is the Lebron James model of charity. Through this model, money is provided to empower youth literacy and support children through school and later through college. By helping less fortunate kids go through proper education, Lebron James is giving them the opportunity, as well as the tools to build a brighter future that would not be possible without education.  This form of charity is highly effective because it’s about changing the course of lives of individuals and encouraging them to work hard towards a better future. What makes this form of charity unique is the fact that you’re not just throwing money at less fortunate people, but you’re rather motivating the younger generation to work hard towards a better future.

I want you to watch a 6-minute video which features the LeBron James “I Promise” school tour so that you can see how athletes can really change things for underprivileged kids, and then we can discuss what we have seen and how the video has made you feel.

LeBron James- “I Promise”

Social responsibility

Sociability is a key aspect of our nature. We pretty much want to love, trust, socialize, talk and form bonds of various types with our fellow human beings. We exist in communities, in societies and our interaction with other human beings is valuable. The teen years are particularly important since it is the time that all these, start becoming more serious. You have to learn the importance of social responsibility and develop community spirit from a young age. In other words, you have to learn to contribute to the various communities that you will find yourselves in throughout your life; be they a school community, college community, sports team, neighborhood, workplace and so on.

Social responsibility is defined as the duty of individuals (and not only) to work towards the common good and use this as the guiding principles of their actions. It is like a promise everyone should make to society that they will work for social, cultural and, ecological causes. The concept social responsibility is built on a nexus of ethics, in which decisions and actions must be ethically “approved” before being executed. If the decision causes harm to society, then it would be considered (socially) irresponsible. Moral values that are deeply ingrained in society create a normative distinction between right and wrong. As such, social fairness is believed by most to be in the “right”, but frequently, this fairness is absent. Every individual has a responsibility to act in a manner that is not only beneficial to the individual but to society as a whole.

Being socially responsible shows both social awareness and self-management skills—that is, an awareness of how our decisions affect others. People should never underestimate the satisfaction that can be derived from working for and with others, by setting aside personal goals and interests from time-to-time. Humans always need to be part of and work towards something greater than themselves.

In the sports industry and the sport world, social responsibility has been a trend for more than two decades. Sport businesses have found social responsibility to be a strategy that could be integrated with their objectives and designed programs that would create business value and positive social change, as part of their operations. These programs address global issues such as racism, gender equality, community development, fairness and equality etc. Additionally, they focus on spreading sports and facilitating sport participation in underprivileged parts of the world. Examples of social responsibility in sports, include programs such as:

• My game is Fair Play (FIFA)
• No to Racism (UEFA)
• DDC Charity Fund (MLS)
• Lean In (NBA)
• Dominican Development Alliance (MLB)

Athlete social responsibility is the ethical theory that as role models, athlete leaders have a duty to society. Athletes and sports teams are highly visible because of their ability to connect with fans, on a much deeper level than most other businesses do. This identification puts leagues, sports teams and athletes in a unique position to advance positive social change.

Now, let’s watch a 3-minute video by Common Goal on social responsibility in Sports.  Common Goal is an initiative of soccer players around the world who donate a small portion of their salary on a monthly basis towards helping underprivileged kids and teenagers around the world.

Common Goal

Volunteer work

Volunteering is described as an unpaid activity, where someone sacrifices their time to help a cause or an organization or an individual. One of the positive effects of volunteering is the impact on the community. Volunteering helps you connect to your community and make it a better place. However, the benefits of volunteering flow in both ways and can therefore directly benefit you too. Notice that doing volunteer work is different from engaging in corporate social responsibility, in the sense that volunteer work is usually the initiative of one person, who contributes to social causes on their own, without a planned agenda

You should know that one of the best ways to establish new relationships – in this particular case with like-minded people – and strengthen existing ones, is to engage together in shared activities. Volunteering is a great way to meet new people, especially if you are new to an area. Volunteering strengthens people’s bond to a community and makes people part of a greater cause, where fun and fulfilling activities take place. In addition, volunteering can help you improve your social and communication skills, helping you also to improve your network.

Doing volunteer work is something that gives you great satisfaction; it doesn’t necessarily translate to any personal gains, direct or indirect, but there is a great intangible benefit that has to do with the moral satisfaction of helping, supporting and being part of a good cause.

Before volunteering, ask yourself if you want to:

• Make a difference
• Help with a cause
• Improve the society or the community
• Meet new people
• Utilize your free time in the best possible way

If your responses are positive to most of these questions, then you should definitely invest time and effort in volunteer work. It will be even more enjoyable, if you combine this volunteer work with something that interests you or you know how to do well. For example, spend two hours every week at the local YMCA, or the House for orphan kids and teach kids the secrets of your sport.  Alternatively, if you are really good in a school subject, you could devote some time each week to tutor kids from poor neighborhoods on that specific subject for free. You could use your Sunday morning to help clean the park, so elderly people can take their grandkids there to play, or you could just sit outside the local grocery store and help older people load their cars, as a gesture of appreciation and respect. There are limitless volunteer opportunities out there. The important thing is to find a volunteer position that you would enjoy but also be capable of doing. It’s equally important to make sure that your degree of commitment matches the needs of that particular cause.

Since you are donating time and effort, it’s important that you enjoy and learn from your experience. Ask questions about the cause you are helping and learn new information; use this work as a way to improve some skills, enjoy yourself and have a good time and always make it a point to meet new people. Meeting new people is always educational, as you get to hear new ideas, different perspectives, observe different attitudes and create a network.

We will watch a 3-minute video about volunteering and then we will discuss ways you can become a volunteer yourself.

Become a Volunteer

Action Steps – Exercise 1(10 minutes)

• How do you feel about volunteering?  Is it something that you would like to do?
• Where would you like to volunteer and why?

Lesson wrap-up

Today we talked about three very important concepts: Philanthropy and charity, social responsibility and volunteering. We explained that as members of communities – many and of different nature throughout our lives – we have to act as such and contribute, give back, donate and so on. There are a lot of athletes who shine because of their off-the-pitch activities. Nonetheless, all these are not specific to athletes only, and your goal should be to become a socially responsible and charitable adult regardless of whether you manage to end up in professional sports or not.

At this point we will wrap up today’s lesson.  First, we will go over the learning objectives of this lesson and we want your feedback as to whether they have been achieved and then we will address any questions you may have.  Please feel free to ask anything you’d like in relation to today’s lesson and we would love to hear how the concepts we discussed today relate to you and your life!