Fidelity Investments partnership with schools - Case Study Example

Fidelity Investments’ partnership with schools The partnership between Fidelity Investments and Citizen Schools is an exemplary case for corporate philanthropy. Evidence for corporate philanthropyAn evidence for contributions of cash as a kind of corporate philanthropy is the statement that since 1998, Fidelity Investments had been giving monetary contributions to Citizen Schools. In-kind donations mentioned in the text include equipment and meeting space. The labor that Fidelity employees contributed teaching in Citizen Schools is an example of employee time donation.

Roy Fralin is an excellent example of a Fidelity employee who taught in Citizen Schools. Another item of Fidelity Investments’ employee time donation is the act by some of its executives serving in the schools’ advisory boards (Discussion Case: Fidelity Investments’ Partnership with Citizen Schools). Benefits and risks to Fidelity Investments of its partnership with Citizen Schools One of the benefits accruing from Fidelity Investments’ partnership with Citizen Schools is the improvement of its employees’ team building skills.

Another benefit is that the partnership enabled majority of Fidelity employees who participated in the apprenticeship exercise to improve their public speaking, communication, and presentation skills. Through participation in the program, both the employees and the entire Fidelity Investments Company got fulfillment for influencing vulnerable students positively. The partnership helped Fidelity Investments employees develop and others to sharpen their leadership skills. It was beneficial for some Fidelity executives to sit in the schools’ top decision-making body, the leadership board (Discussion Case: Fidelity Investments’ Partnership with Citizen Schools 424).

Lastly, offering apprenticeship services for the areas in which they were experts made Fidelity employees feel relevant in the real life and might have helped them reflect on how much they knew. A risk with this partnership is the overworking of Fidelity employees or disruption of work schedules. Fidelity employees could be overworked because they worked both in their company and in the Citizen Schools teaching. Work schedule might have needed modification in order to accommodate time for Fidelity employees to teach at Citizen Schools.

Fidelity Investments partnership with Citizen Schools as an example of strategic philanthropy The two-way flow of benefits between Fidelity Investments and Citizen Schools is one of the things that qualify the partnership as an example of strategic philanthropy. This is because the partnership helped improve Fidelity employees’ skills while benefitting Citizen Schools with labor from these employees. Secondly, the partnership helped build higher profiles for both Citizen Schools and Fidelity Investments.

The many students who participated in the apprenticeship program spread word about the nobility of the courses of both organizations. Additionally, the partnership can be termed as a strategic philanthropy because it helped in the maximum utilization of resources. Fidelity Investments contributed to Citizen Schools and did not need to cater for employee training thereafter because they acquired important training while partaking in the program (Discussion Case: Fidelity Investments’ Partnership with Citizen Schools).

Evaluation of the impact of Fidelity Investments’ partnership with Citizen Schools Administration of questionnaires on different stakeholders in the partnership is one of the ways that would evaluate the impact of the partnership. Unstructured interviews could be used to gather information from the project’s key stakeholders such as the project leaders. Reviewing and auditing the records of funds contributed towards the partnership would be another way of evaluating its impact. Finally, the extent to which the partnership has helped in the achievement of the organizational goals of the partnering organizations would be one of the impacts that would need to be measured.

Accountability in the use and reporting of resources is the other thing that needs measurement. The other thing that needs to be measured during evaluation is the prospects of the sustainability of the partnership. Reference Discussion Case: Fidelity Investments’ Partnership with Citizen Schools. Class notes