Funder Focus: Dawn Boylan and the Aliant Telecom Community Investment Program
July 2, 2002
by Nicole Zummach
This month in our continuing series of interviews with some of Canada's
leading funders, we feature Aliant Telecom's Community Investment
Program, which is one of Atlantic Canada's largest and most active funders. CharityVillage
spoke with community relations manager Dawn Boylan about the
company's dedicated volunteers, how Aliant is working to streamline
the application process for organizations, and some of the current challenges
and trends in corporate philanthropy.
CharityVillage: Aliant Telecom has a very active employee
volunteer program. What kinds of projects are participants
getting involved
in?
Dawn Boylan: Our Pioneers have a focus on education. That is
one of their primary mandates and they look for opportunities to do
that, but they do a wide array of programs across the region. Specifically
on education, one of the larger programs that they are engaged in is
something called ŁA Book About Me'. It's a personalized reader that
is given to Grade One students. Pioneers fundraise the money -- it's
about $10 to $11 a book -- and they do an entire classroom at a time.
They go into a class and actually pass out the readers to the children.
Of course, it is all arranged through the school because these personalized
readers include the name of the child, their friends' names, their pets'
names, and things like that. Once they get their personalized reader,
each child sits down with the Pioneer and if the child is able to read,
he or she reads the book to the Pioneer. If not, the Pioneer reads the
book to the child, and of course, the children get to keep the books.
CV: Was 'A Book about Me' started by Aliant?
DB: It was started by Pioneers, which is an
international organization
made up of retirees and working employees of the telecom
industry across
North America. Aliant has the greatest share of Pioneers in
Canada and
more than 60% of Pioneers are either Aliant retirees or employees. We
have almost eight thousand participants in the four provinces.
CV: What do you think attracts employees to
Pioneering?
DB: I would say it is the fellowship, the opportunities
to volunteer
in their community, and the opportunity to learn more about some of
the things that the company is working on. There is such a wide array
of opportunities for them with respect to the different
charities they
can get involved with and help.
CV: Does the company support employee involvement
in the community
in any other ways, perhaps through United Way initiatives
or other special
projects?
DB: United Way is the single largest community donation that
we provide in PEI, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. There is no United
Way in Newfoundland. We are very active supporters of United Way and
have been for a number of years. Our employees are given
the opportunity
to do payroll deduction for ease of giving and Aliant makes
a significant
corporate donation as well.
CV: Overall, how much is donated each year?
DB: Through our entire community investment program, which includes
donations, sponsorships, and the work of our Pioneers, it is about $4
million across the four provinces, cash and in-kind.
CV: You have an online application system and I
was wondering
how it is working and whether people are responsive to it?
DB: I think that they are responsive and we have
lots of applications
coming in that way. It's new and not a lot of organizations have it
so we have been working out some of the kinks and trying to make it
as user-friendly as possible. It is a new means for people to apply
and I think some people are a bit resistant to it because they really
feel that sending a big glossy presentation is much more impressive
than something I can read online. I think that is where some of the
resistance stems from. But it is great for us, and we hope
for the organization,
because they don't have to waste their time putting
together stuff that
I might not need in an initial screening.
We don't want people to spend days and days putting
together proposals
of information that might not be relevant. We are also
really encouraging
organizations to go online and learn about our funding guidelines and
our restrictions, and the type of programs we look to support. Again,
we don't want organizations that don't fit within our
funding guidelines
to waste the time putting together a proposal if it isn't
going to fit.
It saves time on both ends. We are getting the information
in the format
we need and hopefully it is saving organizations time on that end by
not having to guess what kind of information we would like to know.
CV: Do you think online applications will be a
growing trend
among funders or have you been approached by other
organizations looking
for help in this area?
DB: I certainly think that as technology becomes available for
these processes, it will grow. I have had other organizations call.
For example, I participate in the Community Investment Council with
the Conference Board of Canada, and I've had lots of discussions with
those folks about how it is going for us because there are not many
people who have this capability. As well, CN launched their
online application
around the same time that we did so we have chatted back
and forth about
the good and the bad of having an online process.
CV: What might the downside be?
DB: I think the downside today is that people might be rushing
to get to the application before they've really thought
about the information
that they want to tell us. As a result, we are not getting complete
applications. We are working towards making some changes to
our system
where, perhaps, they could print out a sample form, and be
able to take
it away, think about it, and then come back online. Right now, people
get halfway through it and realize that they don't have
everything that
they need, and we just get a partial application. Again, we
are trying
to come up with a way to make it efficient for both sides.
CV: The four regional telephone companies, MTT, NewTel, NBTel, and
Island Tel, came together under the Aliant umbrella in 1998. Do you
think that your sponsorship program is helping people to
recognize the
new name of telecommunications in Atlantic Canada?
DB: I think so. It is another medium for us to get out there.
Most of the programs that we are doing through sponsorships
and donations
are being branded under Aliant Telecom, so we are getting away from
our provincial names. People are understanding the association, where
Aliant Telecom is coming from, and eventually the
provincial names will
disappear and it will just be Aliant Telecom.
CV: What types of events are you sponsoring?
DB: One of the biggest things we are sponsoring next year is
the Canada Winter Games. We also did the Bell Walk for Kids, which is
another large event that we were involved in. We just
published a community
investment report for the very first time. There is an online format
of this on our web site and it is a sample of the four
province's sponsorships,
donations and some of our Pioneer activities.
CV: Why did you decide to do this report?
DB: The four provincial phone companies have been very strong
community supporters for more than eighty years, but people might not
be realizing the magnitude of our giving. We had never published it
all under one report, or even so much as talked about it
all together.
We felt this was a good opportunity to share the Aliant story as it
is related to our community investment program.
CV: What are some of the trends in corporate philanthropy today?
Do you think they are positive?
DB: I do. I think what everybody is coming to realize is that
money is not endless. People are becoming much more strategic in how
they give their funds. Even in this company, 80 years ago we wouldn't
have been as strategic as we like to think we are today.
You were doing
things for different reasons back then, so they might not
have had the
specific areas of focus that we have today. So much public
sector money,
government funding and grants, has diminished and is not
available anymore.
That has put a lot of pressure on the private sector to step up.
I have been in this role for a few years now and I certainly see from
last year to this year the increased amount of applications that are
coming through our doors. A lot of people reference the
fact that they
used to get funding through a source that is no longer
available, which
has forced them to go out and seek new funders. We are
getting letters
saying it is difficult for organizations to keep their doors open now
that there is that decrease in funding and they are very desperate to
get assistance. The private sector has really had to take a
lot of that
burden on, but of course none of us is able to do it all so we have
to look at what fits within our area. We really do try to align two
things that match our business objectives. We are a
technology company
so we like to look for opportunities to partner in areas where there
is a chance to either demonstrate technology or use the
technology and
to help organizations do what they do.
CV: What is next for your community investment program?
DB: I think Aliant Telecom will continue to become much more
strategic in how it gives its money, again, because of the number of
requests that come in. I don't think you'll see us in the immediate
future just going to one cause, like some organizations have. We feel
it is very important to be part of many organizations, in
many different
communities across the four regions where our customers and employees
live and work. But we are forced to become more strategic as well and
we are looking for people that align with our business objectives and
values, and for organizations that really do need our help.
Dawn Boylan has been with Aliant Telecom for four years. For more
information about their community investment program, visit: www.aliant.com
/english/about/index_cr.htm.
