Matching need & resource...

 

...or making your money work for good

One of our ventures, Shelterbox, last week made me think.

Shelterbox was set up as a rapid response outfit and deploys many, many times per year, often to areas struck by disasters that don’t make the mainstream news. Luckily they have regular strong support to enable them to do so. But a truly enormous disaster, one that leads the ten o’clock news, does two things.

It galvanises the public to donate and donate big. But it also stretches to the limit the resources of the relief agencies, Shelterbox, by design, at the fore. This is not just about people, although that is a constant operational constraint. It is about the specialist equipment ShelterBox supplies - it can take up to six months for items such as tents and stoves to be manufactured. And smaller charities such as Shelterbox (i.e. less than £20m income) can’t afford to have funds tied up in equipment sitting in warehouses.

Shelterbox has the evidence to show that this surge in donations happens. Every time. Indeed you only have to look at their annual income statement to see the effect. The astute reader will immediately spot the imbalance – the monies come after they are needed (better late than never...). Indeed I would bet that the majority of disaster relief agencies face the same issue – how to cover the time between resources going out and cash coming in. 

So here’s the thought – how hard would it be for a company or consortium to buy ‘futures’ in a Shelterbox-owned instrument such that ShelterBox could stockpile sufficient equipment to provide full relief in the face of a repeat of, say, the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. The ‘futures’ bought are the right to repayment from the aforementioned public donations that are triggered by such an event.

The detail of how and when this was paid back etc would need to be worked out but this would allow the use of cash to ameliorate disaster with minimal risk and maximum, social, return. True corporate responsibility – using what you have and aren’t using to enable philanthropic goals?