Tesco and ITV offer €˜virtually no incentives' to help good causes
Howard Lake | 31 January 2007 | News
Tesco and ITV are two of the worst companies in the UK when it comes to ‘ethical bonuses’ according to a survey by donors’ website Intelligentgiving.com.
The site says ‘ethical bonues mean eithe rtopping up employees’ donations to charity or giving paid time off for vounteering.
Many companies surveyed in the Ethical Bonus Index 2007 matched regular donations and covered their staff’s payroll giving administration costs. But Tesco offers no incentives for regular giving and even fails to cover the admin costs of its payroll giving scheme. It supports fundraising events for its own charity of the year – currently British Red Cross – with matched donations, but not for any other charities.
Advertisement
Neill Ghosh from intelligentgiving.com said: As far as ethical bonuses are concerned, Tesco’s offering is way below average. Its fixation on one-of donations to its own high-profile charity looks more like PR than a serious incentive to staff to help chariies. Ane employees who want to give regularly should avoid the company’s payroll giving scheme and give by direct debit isntead – otherwise they lose a percentage in admin costs.
The 10 top companies for ethical bonuses include Aviva (Norwich Union), Northern Rock, Barclays and British American Tobacco.
Northern Rock and Royal Bank of Scotland effectively triple donations made by their employees. The BBC and Aviva both offer six days’ paid volunteering a year, which Ghosh described as ‘extraordinarily generous’.
The Index covers 67 of the country’s highest profile employers and covers more than 1.5m employees.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.