“Forty-four percent of American new media users are searching for, sharing or discussing information about corporate responsibility (CR) efforts and programs…”

“Sixty-two percent of users polled believe they can influence business decisions by voicing opinions via new media channels. ”

While the findings about how much consumers are using new media are important, what strikes me most is the priority that Americans (and presumably Canadians) are placing on corporate responsibility and that so many people are interested in having an impact on what business is doing. In this context, it’s important for corporations to be doing the right thing and creating opportunities for their stakeholders to have a voice and to make a difference – increasingly this will be through new media.

Yesterday, I wrote about Yvon Chouinard’s book Let My People Go Surfing. Here’s another nugget from Chouinard: “People still need an ethical center, a sense of their role in society. A company can help fill that void if it shows its employees and its customers that it understands its own ethical responsibilities and then can help them respond to their own.”

- Make sure employees use your products and services and that they genuinely believe they are of the highest quality

- Embrace constant change – don’t wait for something that is negatively impacting your business

- Make work fun – employees are much more productive and more innovative when they enjoy what they do, who they work with, and where they work

- Embed social and environmental considerations in your products and services – don’t sideline these things, they’re now absolutely central to business performance.

Read the book – you’ll learn lots more.

I support these student-sponsored initiatives and also have a practical suggestion for ensuring that employees of corporations, governments, and non-profits act more responsibly: get HR onside.

HR executives and managers have control over six opportunities to really entrench CSR at an operational level: job descriptions, recruitment, on-boarding, training, performance evaluation and compensation, exit interviews.

If corporate responsibility was integrated in each of these areas it would go a long way to ensuring that people who take MBA oaths actually live up to what they’ve promised,

Plus, because these are all ongoing initiatives, integrating CSR could be done for viryually no incremental cost!

Seven teams of MBA students presented their ideas about the best ways for a company operating in the oil sands area to improve their CSR initiatives. Needless to say this is very difficult territory – it’s clear that the impacts of oil sands operations are under scrutiny from advocacy groups around the world, the situation is extremely complex, and that there are no easy answers.

However, the judges were very impressed by the degree to which the teams understood the still-emerging discipline of corporate social responsibility, recognized the challenges for corporations with oil sands operations, and had developed creative approaches to help mitigate environmental impact and maximize business value.

The presentations also made me think about a simple framework for effective CSR planning:

1. Establish clear business and social/environmental objectives

2. Identify and prioritize the stakeholders that matter most (often very difficult to do due because of the many key groups that are involved including: employees, regulators, media, suppliers, customers, local communities, advocacy groups, etc.)

3.  Establish internal credibility at an executive level by focusing on areas where success can be demonstrated early and where the risks are lowest.

4.  Develop a communications plan to reach and influence the stakeholders that have been selected as priorities in a way that seen as authentic/genuine.

5. Make sure that you have built in an effective evaluation process. This is essential for internal credibility and continuous improvement

I think all the judges would agree with me that the students understood the situation extremely well and that each team’s presentation was remarkable.

I left feeling really inspired to know that the next generation of business leader will be placing such a high priority on doing the right thing.

Congratulations to Prof. Tina Dacin, Mandy Daniel, and especially to the Queen’s MBA students who did such a great job.

- On Making Ethical Choices in Business: The recession lowered the ethical water mark so that people and business who weren’t doing the right thing became more conspicuous. The danger may be that with an improving economy inappropriate behavior may be become more difficult to discern.

- On Young Business Students Today: Boy these people are smart! Perhaps more important than this, the people I spoke with also know a lot about social issues and are deeply interested in what it means to be responsible. What will business look like when these folks become executives?

Finally, my colleague Andrea O’Reilly at Impakt sent me a great quotation this morning: “Pain nourishes courage. You can’t be brave if you’ve only had wonderful things happen to you.” Mary Tyler Moore

Over and out.

The report contains some remarkable findings. Here are a few highlights:

71% think brands and companies spend too much on advertising and marketing and should put more into good causes – up almost 10 percentage points

64% would recommend a brand that supports a good cause – up from 52% last year globally

In Canada, 62% would switch brands if another brand of similar or equal quality supported a good cause , 56% would help a brand promote its products if there was a good cause behind it,  and 55% expect brands to support a good cause.

It’s become very clear that the landscape for consumers and marketers has fundamentally changed. As recently as 5 years ago, cause marketing programs were seen as sidelines to core business. Today, the business case for investing in cause is  unassailable. (In fact, the Edelman research revealed that 55% of consumers surveyed have a better opinion of corporations that integrate good causes into their business – regardless of why they do so).

As per recent posts, it’s important to remember that consumers are looking very closely at what corporations are doing in this area. That means corporate commitment to the cause must be authentic and non-profit partners must be of the highest calibre.

Since 2007 Self magazine has been conducting research to explore women’s emotions resulting from the good a consumer perceives she does by purchasing socially responsible products and brands. As reported in Advertising Age,  skepticism was the area most questioned by those who saw the study and the top reason companies gave for not talking about the good they were doing.

Here are some key findings from the study:

• I feel like the company is only doing good things to get me to buy its product: 39%
• I feel like the company is trying to distract me from the bad things it’s doing: 32%
• I feel like the company is trying to make me feel guilty: 11%
• I don’t trust the company is doing what it says it is doing: 33%

These four questions identified true skeptics. To qualify as a true skeptic, women had to agree with at least three of the four statements. Importantly, only 16% of those sampled did so. So, although skeptics are a small segment of the consumer population, fear of skepticism is still holding companies back from talking about their cause programs.

Here is a profile of the skeptical consumer:

• She’s more inclined than the average person to focus on the negative.
• While she is more likely than non-skeptics to pay a lot of attention to the good things companies are doing (51% vs. 42%), she is even more likely to pay a lot of attention to the bad things companies do (66% vs. 48%).
• The skeptic is also more likely to frequently purchase products from companies doing good things — but by a wide margin (53% vs. 41%).

It turns out that skeptics may be a group that should be targeted not feared. In order to “declaw” and engage the skeptical consumer, Ad Age recommends applying two key approaches to communications:

1. Transparency:

• Always show where detailed information can be found, whether in ads, collateral, etc. And provide as much detail as possible about where the money is going. Even go a step further if you can and include third-party sources who endorse what you’re doing.
• Explain the fit between your company and your cause. Don’t assume consumers understand. For example, show your consumer how your involvement has made a difference in your culture and workplace, and she’ll be better able to appreciate how genuine your efforts are.

2. Consistency:

• Prove that the initiative is not a “one-off.” Provide a time line of your commitment. Even better, extend it into the future and help consumers look ahead with you.
• Include adherence to a code of behavior that applies to all aspects of your business. It’s not about doing good on one side to hide the bad you are doing on the other.
• Be sure to respond proactively to any negative press, comments or buzz. Don’t wait for it to become a huge issue. And “respond” doesn’t necessarily mean “refute.” Explain the situation as best you can and what you plan to do moving forward.

On the last point, I commend The Bay for responding to a recent post called Time to Re-Think
Think Pink? where I raised some questions about the company’s current Think Pink cause marketing promotion. Here’s what they said:

While we strive to have as many Think Pink™ products as we can, some of these products are not exclusive to Hudson’s Bay Company so while we can contribute to the messaging and positioning  when the product has an independent partnership with the Foundation, the  packaging/hang tags will be distinctive to that partnership. With respect to your specific questions:

• The annual contribution of $430,000 is a combination of a portion of sales of Think Pink™ products, and our customers donating their Hbc Rewards points
• While we encourage a consistent health message on all of the  Think Pink™ products, some items are from previous years programs and do have an older hang tag on them, or are items not exclusive to the Hudson’s Bay Company
• It is inappropriate for us to suggest one product over another…we hope that you will find the right Think Pink™ product that fits your budget and participate in this worthy promotion’
• We would be delighted to offer a wider selection of products throughout the store and each year we encourage our wide range of vendor partners to offer exclusive Think Pink™ products for all of our customers.

People I know in the corporate and non-profit sectors were shocked to find out how much Mr. O’Mahoney received wondered how the board of directors at SickKids could have agreed to such as high salary (reported as being more that the president of SickKids Hospital) and severance.

While the lens of corporate social responsibility is clearly focused on the actions of the private sector, organizations in all sectors are being held to a higher standard than ever. In my experience, most large corporations have endorsed the principles of CSR and have put checks and balances in place to ensure that their operations are as responsible as is possible. CSR standards such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) have been adopted by virtually all global corporations. And, business are doing everything they can to better understand the social and environmental outcomes of their actions.

It’s clear that non-profit organizations are not inherently responsible. I think that inappropriate behavior by third sector organizations is a violation of the public’s investment (though taxes and donations) and trust. While guidelines exist for charitable organizations (in Canada through the Canada Revenue Agency) I don’t believe that there is anything as nearly as comprehensive as GRI. (If there is, I be happy to hear about it).

To quote Mr. Obama, this is the “age of responsibility”.  Today, the public has a higher expectation than ever of organizations in all sectors and non-profits should consider reviewing and adopting the principles and practices of CSR.

At one level, cause related marketing programs like this are a positive way to create awareness of important issues and to motivate behaviour change. However, in addition to featuring products that re-enforce gender stereotypes of women (without a sense of irony which would temper this effect), the Think Pink program raises more concern for me because of a lack consistency and clarity. For example, by purchasing a set of Think Pink Port-Style Flexible Nylon Spatula “a 10% contribution will be made to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation”.  I saw a Think Pink dish towel with a tag that states “With a purchase of this Think Pink product, a minimum of 10% (before taxes) will be contributed to the Foundation in support of ongoing research projects”. If you purchase a Pink Ribbon “Bling” Tote, “10% of the net proceeds will be contributed to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. In other cases a specific amount (e.g. $5.00) is directed to the foundation. All the tags that I saw say that “In 2008, Hudson’s Bay Co. contributed $430,000 to the Foundation through the Think Pick program. Finally, some product tags also have this health promotion message “Be Breast Aware. Know your breasts. Look and feel for lumps, changes in skin texture, appearance and shape.”

Here are some of the questions I have for The Bay:

- How much of the $430,000 that is contributed to the CBCF is in donations from consumers and how much is from the company? If this revenue comes from consumers, the tags should state this instead of leaving it ambiguous.

- Why do some product have the health message and some not? Isn’t this the whole idea?

- If I really wanted to support the CBCF, which products have the biggest net contribution to the organization?

- Couldn’t they also help to reduce gender stereotyping by including products other than dish towels and jewelery? (If they did this, perhaps they’d sell more and contribute more because men would buy things too).

When planning cause programs, don’t forget that we’re in “the age of transparency”. Make sure that your programs are clear in their intent, consistent in their messaging, and that your company is also committed at a corporate level in addition to driving donations from consumers.

I welcome your thoughts…

Impakt’s experience supports these findings. Over the last year, we’ve seen very few clients reduce their program in this area. Today, I believe the key value drivers for corporations are: reputation, risk management, employee engagement, and external stakeholder engagement. In terms of improving performance, the questions that I’m are asked most often are: How can we better operationalize our CSR programs? How can we measure the ROI of our community investment partnerships? and What are the most cost-effective ways to increase internal and external awareness of our programs?

Highlights of the Center’s 2009 State of Corporate Citizenship in the United States report include:

• Despite upheaval in the economy, a majority of U.S. companies are not making major changes in their corporate citizenship practices. Of those who made changes 38% reduced philanthropy/giving, 27% increased layoffs, and 19% reduced R&D for sustainable products.
• Most U.S. senior executives believe business should be more involved than it is today in addressing major public issues including health care, product safety, education, and climate change. Surveyed in June, just as the national debate on health care began to intensify, some 65 percent said business should increase its involvement in this issue.
• Reputation was cited by 70% as a driver for corporate citizenship, tied for the top spot with “it fits our company traditions and values.”
• The citizenship response during the recession differed between larger and smaller companies. Large companies significantly increased their investments and involvement in citizenship activities, but were more likely to impose layoffs. Small firms stayed committed to their emphasis on treating employees well by minimizing layoffs. But they significantly decreased attention to other aspects of citizenship.
• Based on current economic conditions, 15% of companies are increasing R&D for new sustainable products; 11% are increasing corporate citizenship marketing and communications; and 10% are increasing local and/or domestic sourcing or manufacturing.
• Half of the businesses are supporting skill development for employees making less than $40,000 annually and see these efforts as boosting productivity.
• Only 34 percent of executives who responded to the survey say greater regulatory oversight by the federal government is an important part of solving the current economic crisis and creating a more stable economy.

Recognizing the growing importance of partnerships, Queen’s School of Business has introduced a new executive learning program called Building Strategic Partnerships for Social Responsibility. This 2-day interactive workshop is intended to help participants make a strong business case for non-profit partnerships in their companies, understand what it takes to foster an authentic non-profit partnership, and leverage and execute non-profit partnerships with better business outcomes.

I’ll be helping to lead this session with two professors from Queen’s who are internationally-recognized authorities on CSR, Dr Jay Handelman and Dr. Tina Dacin.

People interested in this workshop can contact Queen’s at 1-888-393-2338 or click on the link above for more information.

Sander believes that “as a movement, CSR is either dead or on life support” – largely due to the recession killing “nice-to-haves” in favor of an exclusive focus on profit centre programs. While there’s lots of solid evidence to refute this claim (in addition to my own experience as a consultant in this area), I agree with Sanders that CSR has largely become a compulsory exercise designed to limit liability, boost morale and add to the branding story of the company. Examples of CSR actually delivering sales are harder to find.

Here’s where corporate social opportunities (CSO) comes in. Sanders believes that CSO “should be a marketing function, designed to seek out the cutting edge of brand innovation — where a company’s assets intersect with the greater community’s needs. When you find this match, you can produce a sustainable program that inspires sales while it makes a difference.”

I agree. The CSO’s frame of reference is:  do some good but be sure that there’s a marketing tie in that connects the company with the cause and inspires customers to connect with the company.

In re-reading the questions I had for James it struck me that these might be helpful to others as baseline program planning considerations. Direct Energy has done its homework and is able to answer these key questions. Many other corporations I speak with are still grappling with these fundamentals.

How did your company decide on its community investment strategy? To what degree does the program reflect the social and business priorities of employees and of external stakeholders?

In what ways do your company’s partnerships with non-profit organizations address business objectives? How did you come to partner with these particular non-profits?

How do you balance the need for consistency at a corporate level with the priorities of employees and stakeholders at a local level?

Community investments are largely qualitative and difficult to measure. How does your company benchmark and assess the performance of its community programs as needed to determine the ROI?

Here are some some simple and inexpensive ways to increase employee engagement adopted from David Coethica’s excellent CSR blog:

1.    Understand what’s important and meaningful:  Right now among your staff you may have an eco-warrior, a Twitter or blogging expert, a charity fundraiser extraordinaire or a fitness guru, who could all potentially add further value to your organization at little additional expense. Talk to your employees, tap into their true passions and look for ways to leverage complimentary skills.

2. Leverage CSR In Recruitment: More than ever potential employees are placing a very high priority on issues outside of salary and traditional benefits such as work-life balance, corporate values, commitment to CSR, and volunteering opportunities. Make sure that your company has established programs and policies in these areas and that they have been integrated into the recruitment process.

3. Provide Opportunities for Volunteering:  Offering your employees the chance to volunteer for a charity that’s relevant and meaningful to them is an inexpensive way of adding value to employee packages. No matter how small your business you can spare at least a couple of employee hours (especially at low periods) to paint a fence, read to a child, clean a river bank etc.  energised workforce, not to mention the new skills, change of scenery and feeling of satisfaction. 

4.    Support a Charity: Charitable giving can be done through payroll at very little cost which effectively reinforces the company’s ethos of being a good citizen. Each employee can select their own charity or you could suggest a good cause that the company supports formally. 

5. Provide Flexible Work Options: There are numerous options including staggered hours, compressed hours, shift swapping, job sharing, flexi time and home working. Larger companies report productivity improvements of 20 – 30% using these techniques. 

6. Make Employee Health a Top Priority: Here are a few suggestions to help your employees perform to their best of their ability: set up a company running/walking/sports team or club, promote cycling to work, encourage, pay for or subsidise yoga, Pilates or aerobics, provide fresh fruit and drinking water, or a fridge for employees own food, have regular health topic awareness days, promote Fairtrade or organic products, have a quite room for reading and relaxing.

When it comes to investing in sustainable business behaviors and programs, more than half of corporate marketers and communicators in the U.S. believe that their organizations will increase their involvement in environmental sustainability initiatives during the next two to three years, according to a survey conducted by the American Marketing Association and Fleishman-Hillard, Inc. In addition, half of those surveyed believe that economic realities will actually encourage the adoption of sustainability practices.

The survey shows that 58 percent of marketing and communication leaders believe their companies will place more emphasis on developing corporate sustainability opportunities in the months ahead, despite the belt tightening that is happening in the business world.

More than half of those surveyed believe that sustainability is an essential element of their company’s reputation right now. Nearly three-quarters believe that corporate reputation, corporate culture and technological advancements will be the drivers for sustainability.

However, optimism is tempered with some smart realities. While the majority of companies will continue to invest in sustainability initiatives during the next year, how companies chose to communicate that commitment is mixed. About 43 percent of those surveyed expect their companies to increase marketing of their sustainability programs. They say they will do so because it is the right thing to do; customers are asking for more information; it is supportive of the corporate culture; and because sustainability offers a clear and distinct business advantage. That said, more than half of the respondents do not expect to increase their storytelling in the category of sustainability.

Additional key findings from the study include:

• More marketers and communicators (53 percent) define sustainability as the need to balance financial, human and natural resources for the long-term benefit of business and communities. Few define sustainability in terms of focusing on renewable energy resources (3 percent) or driving inefficiency out of the supply chain (10 percent).
• Employees (82 percent) and customers (74 percent) are more likely to be the targets of communications about sustainability than are investors and analysts (52 percent).

I’d like to know what Canadian Business readers think and have created a survey to find out. Click here to provide your response.

1. Up the Ante and Accelerate Corporate Responsibility Initiatives

“If a company has developed a strategy that incorporates or is driven by corporate responsibility issues, given the huge growth in consumer interest and demand for more responsible companies, as well as increasing external drivers, now is the time to accelerate progress if you are truly focused on long-term value,” Jeffrey Hollender, the President and “Chief Inspired Protagonist” of Seventh Generation says.

2. Focus and Prioritize

One prominent retailer, who declined to be identified, noted that many companies can’t afford any CR letdown because customers demand that corporations track the sustainability of their products and “gauge the overall CR health of the companies they do business with.”

3. Think Different and Tell the World About It

Paul Klein, the President of Impakt, a corporate responsibility consulting firm in Toronto, agrees on the need to tout your value proposition.  “The ROI of this is clearer differentiation, stronger sales, better supplier and customer relationships, more consumer loyalty and improved investor relations,” Klein says.

4. Share and Share Alike

“Strike a deal,”  Krista Pilot, a Senior Vice President at DKC, counsels. “CR is multidisciplinary covering legal, Human Resources, environment and communications, so go out and make friends with your fellow corporate department heads to see if you can collaborate on CR projects and share the costs.”

 5. Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance

 “The biggest challenge is how to be seen as responsible when significant operational changes are needed,” Klein says. “There’s no easy answer for a company that’s had to downsize its operations in a local community. There are a few ways to minimize the reputational damage, but these all involve earlier foresight and groundwork.”

6. In Lean Times, Lean on Your Partners, Get More Efficient

Robert Leffel, associate director of the Ethisphere Institute in New York City, believes “there is solid reason for ramping up your investment into corporate responsibility efforts and communication” in sluggish economic times as “the battle for the customer and profit is more fierce.” Still, Leffel notes that there is a good chance during such a downturn to negotiate better rates from advertising and communication vendors.

7. Get a New Analysis of Your Risky Business

“Given the increasing media scrutiny of corporate responsibility by NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) and the media, now is the time to update your risk analysis and determine if accelerating investments in dealing with anything related to reputational risk is appropriate,” Hollender says.”

 8. Get Trendy, or Trend-Conscious, At Least

“Take a look at what your competition is doing,” says Chris Park, a Principal at Deloitte Consulting. “Then take a look at where the legislature is leaning, not just at the federal level, but also at the state and municipality levels in all of the locations where you do business. Assess market trends here and abroad. Once you have this information, you’ll know what to do.”

9. Check Your Reality and Shift Around Your Budget, if Necessary

“If the bulk of your corporate responsibility budget has been dedicated to corporate communications or public relations, it may be time to re-apportion it so that operations and governance get a greater share.” Park says. Of course, if you have your act in gear and already can walk the walk, then it may be time to increase the public relations budget and let the world know about your efforts and brand.

10. Keep the Faith

The economy is like an elevator: what goes up must go down. And, if you have done your corporate responsibility homework and kept integrating sustainability as a way of doing business, your efforts should put your company on solid ground.

The session was another indication of how far apart the corporate and non-profit sectors really are. On the one hand, the social issues non-profits are addressing are escalating and the financial resources available to them from the public and private sector are harder to come by. In this context, there’s a realization among non-profits that a collaborative partnership-based approach is needed. On the other hand, non-profits are wary of getting too close to corporations and aren’t familiar with how corporations operate.

Corporations are in the opposite position. They need more alignment with social issues and the credibility that a partnership with a non-profit brings is invaluable and essential. However, working with non-profits is very different that working with business partners (decision-making is more complex, objectives are different, and measures of success aren’t always clear) and most “partnerships” are actually strategic donations.

I believe corporations and non-profits do need to work together as partners. In order to do this, they need to take the time to map out shared objectives, identify and leverage existing complementary resources, and have a means of measuring social and business outcomes.

In the “age of responsibility” your corporation’s values are more important than ever and cause marketing programs are a way of amplifying these values and benefiting the bottom line.

Here are 10 reasons to initiate or continue cause marketing in a down economy (excerpted from an article by Massachusetts-based Causemedia).

1. Drive sales. 

In 2003, a Cause Evolution Study found that 87 percent of Americans would switch from their current brand to one associated with a good cause if price and quality are similar. 

Five years later, Duke University’s Behavioral Cause Study verified this finding. In the study, 182 consumers were exposed to cause-related and traditional corporate print ads for one of four brands in a regional magazine, then were sent to shop in a mock store featuring 150 products. The result: Consumers bought brands associated with causes. A shampoo brand with a cause marketing ad saw a 74 percent increase in sales while a toothpaste brand experienced a 28 percent lift. 

The bottom line: cause-related marketing helps drive sales while creating good public relations for your company.

2. Differentiate from Competitors. 

Strategic business partnerships between corporations and non-profits provide a positive ROI for the business and raise money and visibility for the cause. 

3. Re-Build Trust.  

Bailouts, CEO golden parachutes, corporate greed and scandals continue to be headlines.  Cause programs can help re-build your corporation’s brand image and help re-establish trust among your employees and external stakeholders.

4. Make meaningful connections. 

Cause marketing is an opportunity to link your brand to the wants, needs, lifestyle and interests of your stakeholders. Doing so will help you connect with them in a way no other marketing tactic can. 

5. Be accountable to consumers.

A Snider, Hill & Martin Study (2003) found that 82 percent of respondents believe that firms should engage in social initiatives, while 76 percent believe these initiatives would benefit not only society but also the firm. These findings were confirmed in the Cone Cause Evolution Study (2007), which reported that 83 percent of Americans believe companies have a responsibility to support social causes, and 92 percent value companies that positively impact social issues more than those who do not. 

6.  Improve employee recruitment and retention.

In 2007, Harris Interactive found that 87 percent of college students want to work for companies that support charitable causes. That trend isn’t just among Millennials. A 2004 Deloitte Touche Study found 72 percent of all employees in the U.S. want to work  for companies that support charitable causes. 

Your company can leverage the power of motivated, passionate employees for profitable growth and employee recruitment, retention and productivity.

7. Increase employee engagement. 

Numerous studies have shown the positive effects of volunteerism — not just for the cause or nonprofit but for developing superior leadership skills and encouraging cross-function teamwork among employees. Like your consumers, your employees are also looking for meaningful connections. 

8. Help your employees become brand evangelists.  

Your employees can be your brand’s best spokespersons and boosters, and cause marketing can help your workforce become more engaged in the business. The result: Your employees work for you not because they have to, but because they want to. This is especially true with larger retailers that have historically have high turnover rates. 

9. Benefit from positive ROI

Proctor & Gamble has practiced cause marketing for decades, executing both brand specific and corporate-wide programs here and abroad. P&G would not continue supporting and increasing cause marketing efforts if the returns did not perform at least as well as their other efforts. 

10. Make an authentic contribution to the community. 

Communities will reward the brand heroes that made a true connection with them and cause marketing is win-win tactic for the corporation and the social cause or non-profit. The cash infusion from corporations into the non-profit sector is critical, especially today given continued cut-backs in public sector contributions, and an anticipated drop in private sector contributions.