An American expert on philanthropy and voluntary actions says that Government and corporations must move beyond just giving money to charitable organisations and also offer their administrative expertise.

Brian O'Connell says that while most businesses follow the model of providing short-term grants for programme activities or improvements: "Corporations generally do not do in their philanthropy what corporations know best and that is how do you build the capacity of the organisation to be bigger and better."

Mr. O'Connell is founding president of Independent Sector, America's national umbrella organisation for philanthropy and voluntary action. He is also a professor of public service at the University College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts.

He is on the Island this week as a guest of the Centre on Philanthropy. Tonight he will be the guest speaker at the Donor Symposium. He has also offered his expertise to Government, religious leaders and charities during his visit to the Island.

He said that when it comes to corporate charity, the situation in Bermuda is the same as elsewhere. Businesses give funding to programmes without always ensuring the charity has the administrative tools it needs to carry its initiative out.

"Corporations here and elsewhere will say we don't fund fundraising, we don't fund overhead. We just fund programmes as they are getting something started without any real exemption of who and how the programme will be carried out [in the long-term," he said.

"Businesses should do in their philanthropy what they do best in their businesses and that is help voluntary organisations that operate in the areas where they agree are a priority," Mr. O'Connell said.

"Corporations should say we'll fund fundraising. We want you to increase your capacity and if we fund fundraising and if you double over the next two-five years then we greatly increased your programme capacity or we'll help with marketing or we'll help in hiring a new staff position for marketing or for administration."

Mr. O'Connell says that corporate donors should treat their charitable interests in the same way as they would their own business.

"It is not simply overhead that they are funding it is the same kind of investment they make in the next level of their ability to increase sales, increase people's interest in whatever the company is trying to do," he said."We've got to be sure that these organisation are as open accountable and as able to deal with these internal issues as businesses have to be."

Mr. O'Connell says that corporations will also see great benefit if they encourage their employees to volunteer for charitable activities.

"Participation in community improves the leadership capacity of the people involved because very often you are dealing with people who are just in accounting or just in marketing or just in sales or production. In their voluntary role, they are dealing with a whole realm of the agency's needs so they are developing their leadership capacity, their confidence as leaders and they feel good about themselves," he said. "Employees who have those additional assets and experiences are better employees, better further leaders of the company and the community."

Corporations are not however alone in needing to focus more on ensuring charities have a handle on their administrative activities. A charity that runs a successful programme with the help of public money may still need Government guidance to ensure that it also properly records meeting minutes and files its financials.

Mr. O'Connell said: "What we do in some places in the United States is start up management consulting firms for voluntary organisations. These are often funded by the government in its interest to strengthen the internal operations of those voluntary organisations. Some governments will even say to the voluntary organisation, of the money we give you in the next three years we want you to spend 15 percent of it on developing those internal capacities to be able to report to the public as well as government on what you are doing with public money."