james caan the interview

<p>Sameer Karim of Douglas Weymss Solicitors proudly introduces James Caan to Affiliates Magazine. Instantly recognised on the celebrity circuit and the hard-nosed world of business, here James Caan shows his softer side explaining why the work he does for charity is so important to him…</p> <p><strong>The old adage states that ‘charity begins at home’ – when did you start to actively support charity?</strong></p> <p>Throughout my professional life, there have always been occasions when I was actively involved in charity. One of the earliest projects that I worked on was when I heard on the radio that St Barts Hospital was going to close down it’s A&amp;E department. I worked in Holborn, a stone’s throw from the hospital and thought that this was terrible. I knew I had to do something, so I decided to shut the office for the day, and go out and raise funds to keep the A&amp;E department open. It was an amazing experience, and the team of people working with me all came together to rally around this cause. The local media really got behind us with London radio stations and papers covering the story. We ended up raising enough money to keep the department open which was a fantastic result. Another experience I had, but still quite early on, was when I was asked to join the board of the NSPCC Full Stop Campaign chaired by HRH Prince Andrew. That was an incredible opportunity, to join heads with some of the leading people in business to really try and build a lasting strategy to stop child cruelty. It’s great to have the ability to go out on the road to fundraise, but an alternative way to achieve impact is through a strong network of people. This gave me a really good understanding of the ways in which you can make a difference and the value of time and resources in addition to capital.</p> <p><strong>What are the benefits for a business organisation of a charity relationship?</strong></p> <p>It’s interesting actually, because increasingly more corporates are realising that a CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) strategy is directly linked to attracting quality people into your organisation. More often than not, a company’s CSR page is the second most visited web page by new candidates after the careers section. So working with the community, with charity partners is actually important to the growth of your company and its workforce. But more specifically, the interaction between the charity sector and business is a great way for each to learn the benefits of the other. There is this perception that charity and business are worlds apart and that they don’t understand each other. But when you think about the principles, charities are organisations just like any other business that need to manage their resources effectively to be able to carry out their core function. By doing this effectively, means you can do more for the cause that you’re trying to support.</p> <p><strong>How can SMEs become involved with charity work?</strong></p> <p>It’s actually really easy! There are so many ways to get involved with charity work – through a matched funding scheme, where you match any money raised by your employees for charity; pay-roll giving, where your staff can give through their salaries; team-building exercises for charity; charity of the year is a great way for your company to get involved in selecting a charity to support for the rest of the year, and provides opportunities for you to volunteer, get active and as a team raise money. You can also look into the community of where your business is based and see if there’s anything that your business does that could help the community. You may be a recruitment company who can offer a day to your local community centre to help with interview and CV help for example. There are a whole host of ways to get involved, and it’s such a growing part of our society that SME’s should play a role in the nonprofit sector.</p> <p><strong>It’s easier for a director to display altruism, but how do you encourage colleagues to share your passion?</strong></p> <p>Engagement is key. Give your colleagues a chance to have a say in what they think is important. Charity is personal, but if you give everyone a voice or a choice as to what to support, they’ll feel more involved and be able to share their own passion.</p> <p><strong>If a business organisation does little to support charity – does that change your perception of it?</strong></p> <p>Not at all. It’s great to have your business involved with charity, but charity is also an individual and personal choice. So a director may be running a marathon, or acting as a trustee of a charity, or mentoring kids – you may never know, so I would never alter my perception of the company or its directors.</p> <p><strong% <="" p=""> <p>Comments are closed.</p> </strong%></p> <p>Comments are closed.</p>