Fondazione Blu was founded by a group of entrepreneurs and professionals with a commitment to the primary objective to support education and development in early childhood in the poorest areas of the world. For this reason FB considers it very important to contact companies and to this end has created a programme 'Ethical Business' in order to involve other like minded companies in the social and ethics field. The ethical conscience is gaining more and more interest in the world of business and economics. Increasingly nowadays companies find that economic and capital budgets can and must go along with ethical and social ones. Such companies do face the problem with the selection of an action or an objective to support, one in which it can feel recognised and for which the company can feel it is "making a difference" in terms of impact. While the bigger charities are promoting initiatives, which are certainly important, the disparity between a small or medium company with its limited "social" budget and a world-wide programme can make this company feel its intervention is relatively insignificant.
The programme that Fondazione Blu proposes has been selected to be affordable even by limited business budgets. The results that can be achieved are various and they can be briefly resumed as follows:
Active support for Foundation Blu and its projects can be realized in the following ways:
The tradition to give Christmas gifts to customers and employees is widely used by companies. It is possible to replace those gifts with a contribution to the Foundation in the name of the customers, as well as proposing this possibility to the employees.
A second step could be to propose to employees who agree to donate the equivalent of one hour’s wage to the Foundation. Italian law allows this operation directly from the pay-envelope.
The company can also contribute with its own donation along with its employees, which can be deducted from taxes, as Fondazione Blu is recognised as registered “ONLUS” in Italy.
The annual cost to start and support continuously a crèche is € 1.200. Detailed reports on the running of the programmes and on the health of the children can be shared within the company and the expenses can be monitored. A sponsored crèche can be named as the company name or the company itself can choose the name.
For an amount of € 150 it is possible to adopt a child at the crèche and ensure that his/her health will be monitored. This amount will cover the various costs of the crèche, including part of the expenses for the host mother, the training of the adolescents and their studies. It is possible to check the reports on the adopted child on the Internet.
For free amounts from 1,000 to 10,000 Euros it is possible to sponsor the building of the Monobitan campus, where street children can follow ludic-didactic programmes leading to their school re-integration. In addition, it is possible to give a name to the structure that is being sponsored.
The company can launch a commercial campaign, where a percentage of an invoice is donated to Fondazione Blu. In this case Fondazione Blu can supply communication and publicity materials.
For example some supermarkets during Christmas time donate between 1% and 2% of the income of some products. Through this action they can strengthen their external image of “ethical business”, which can also be useful to their commercial purposes.
The company can participate in the organisation or sponsor solidarity auctions, social dinners and concerts, where the proceeds will be given to Fondazione Blu. In this case Fondazione Blu and the company work together for the success of the event.
It is possible to give free donations to support the programmes of Fondazione Blu, its administrative costs, the implementation of training programmes and the development of new projects.
When the company desires it, Fondazione Blu commits itself to start a process where a strong link is set between them. For that purpose the company can mention Fondazione Blu in its publicity and information materials, for example adding a page to its catalogue dedicated to the projects the company supports, or adding the sentence “the company supports and sponsors Fondazione Blu in its programmes for childhood education”.
It is also possible to create mutual links within the websites of the Foundation and of the company, in order to grant visibility to the partnership. Fondazione Blu commits itself to include the company in its sponsors in its institutional documentation and on its website.