Why Do Businesses Support Your ED Organization?

Maybe you should ask the economist Milton Friedman. Remember him?

To remind you, here is a clip from an interview in Business Week with Friedman about his views on why companies engage in social responsibility efforts. I would add that economic development is one of them.

Q: Your 1970 article on social responsibility is entitled "The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits." Does that belief still apply today?

A: Yes, I still hold fully with that article. I haven't seen any reason to change or add anything to it.

Q: So nothing has changed in the operating environment that might make companies need to engage with the community more today than in the past?

A: It's covered in that article. I point out that a company that is playing a large part in a community may want, for its own purposes and profit, to maintain good relations with the community and to engage in community activity. In doing so, it would be pursuing its own profit. But, of course, it may believe that it will be better public relations if it labels its actions an act of social responsibility. I believe most of the claims of social responsibility are pure public relations.