Cooperation between CSOs and Business Sector Brings Many Mutual Benefits

“The reason because of which we all want to cooperate is because we all want to have benefits. Regardless whether you come from the business sector of the civil one, you should start to develop more complex understanding of the mutual benefits”, said Simon Forrester, Civica Mobilitas International Expert, to the participants in the workshop “Strengthening the Cooperation between the Private Sector and CSOs”, which took place on 21^st October in Skopje.

More than 20 representatives of CSOs and companies gathered at MCIC premises and discussed their common interests, challenges and possibilities for new partnerships. Forrester encouraged the participant to share their previous experience in this area.

“I hope that the businesses will be more open to different experience, knowledge and potential support to the organization”, said Mila Josifovska Danilovska from “Metamorphosis” foundation. She explained that their programmes were focused on media literacy, digital transformation and social responsibility, and that, while they had cooperated mostly with companies outside Macedonia, such as Facebook and Google, they were interested in cooperating with local companies as well.

The CMA “KRIK” director, Mila Karadafova Angelovska stressed the importance of establishing new contacts. “We do not have cooperation with the business sector, therefore I would like to know how we can establish cooperation, what we can expect and how we can make a better society for all”, she added.

Forrester made a comparison with Great Britain, where the three sectors – public, civil and private – work together and effectively. According to him, in Macedonia the civil sector is smaller and still developing, and therefore the cooperation is more difficult.

The participants were acquainted with the eight areas of benefits from the cooperation, according to European research: reputation, innovation and knowledge sharing, market development, resource mobilization, influence on policies, education, human capital development, as well as ECG (economic social and corporate governance) and risk management. Forrester also indicated that the dialogue with CSOs helps the businesses assess the potential risks and community reactions before starting new initiatives.

The participants from CSOs had the chance to discuss directly with representatives of socially responsible companies. Some of them were Goran Antevski from “Rade Konchar – TEP”, Irena Jakimovska from “Comfy Angel”, Blagoj Hristov from “Macedonian Telecom”, Xhemail Dauti from “Dauti Komerc”, Besir Dernjani from “Albiz” foundation, as well as Petar Ordanoski, Tiana KOstova and Mila Kstik from “Infoproekt”.

Irena Jakimovska shared an example of cooperation with a CSO and at the same time stressed the need for inclusion of women in economic processes. “As a company, together with Finance Think we worked on the topic of increasing labor productivity with women. The analysis has shown that only 40% of the female population is involved in the economic processes. This negative indicator is not bad for the women only, but also for the companies and the country itself” – she said.

The long-term benefit of socially responsible practices was the topic of Goran Antevski. “We always participate in projects where the people can learn and do something for themselves. In the last years, we have focused more on projects that create a long term social benefit rather than only sponsoring of one-day events”.

Blagoj Hristov explained how the Macedonian Telekom support system to CSOs function. “Via Telekom for Macedonia foundation there is serious money allocated for support to various initiatives. We especially focus on long term projects in the area of economy, health and inclusion”. He added that the Foundation has public calls every year, and the focus is on sustainable solutions and initiatives with social value.

In the workshops there were also new ideas on improving the cooperation. The companies proposed establishing a platform that will ease the access to CSOs according to their interests and needs. Marina Mateska from the Association of Social Workers (ZSRM) proposed creation of an Impact Network that would strengthen the relations between the sector with resources, trust and common mission.

The goal of the workshop was to create possibilities for long term cooperation and mutual benefits between the civil and business sector. “With better understanding of the mutual benefits, you will have new ideas and you will strategically develop your relations in a stronger way,” said Simon Forrester encouraging the participants to continue to develop their mutual cooperation.