Why corporate philanthropy needs to think longer term
Corporate philanthropy must shift from short-term, visibility-driven projects to sustained, multi-year partnerships focused on capacity-building and co-creation with local expertise to achieve genuinely durable outcomes, says Ylann Schemm
Time is the enemy in corporate philanthropy. Or at least, that’s how we behave. Challenges such as global health disparities do not fit neatly into annual plans or reporting cycles. Progress relies on sustained commitment to support institutions and people over time, rather than isolated initiatives. Yet corporate giving often reflects the same short-term pressures found elsewhere in business. Funding is incremental, success is measured quickly, and initiatives are often designed for optimum visibility. The result can be a landscape of projects that may look impressive but lack the ability to deliver durable outcomes.
When the Elsevier Foundation, our corporate foundation, was established 20 years ago, corporate philanthropy often followed a transactional model: funding flowed, projects were delivered, and relationships ended. While well intentioned, this approach rarely built the trust or institutional strength needed for lasting change. In some cases, it proved counterproductive, placing strain on local organizations that had to stretch limited resources to deliver donor-driven projects, only to see the project fall off a cliff once the funding ran out.
There is a better way: committing to multi-year partnerships, building relationships, focusing on defined outcomes and investing in capacity rather than standalone projects. This creates the conditions for shared learning and accountability, but it’s also slower, less visible – and far more effective.
This shift requires investment in systems, not just interventions. Health outcomes, for example, are shaped by overlapping social, economic and environmental factors. Supporting locally led, interdisciplinary research matters, as does recognising that expertise is not confined to institutions in the Global North.
Co-creation
Corporate philanthropy still too often assumes solutions can be designed in advance and delivered from the outside. However, the biggest producer of academic research is now the Global South. Today, progress depends on co-creation, sustained engagement with partners, and humility about what organisations do not know.
In the corporate world, you wouldn’t dream of entering a new market without engaging local expertise – and the same principle applies in philanthropy
In the corporate world, you wouldn’t dream of entering a new market without engaging local expertise – and the same principle applies in philanthropy. In one awards programme we’ve run, a researcher in Guatemala developed a community-based approach to managing schizophrenia, carefully integrating modern medicine with local belief systems and what local healthcare professionals and communities could realistically deliver, rather than importing a model developed elsewhere. That kind of adaptation isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s the difference between success and failure.
There is also a pragmatic case for taking this approach. Long-term partnerships generate knowledge and credibility that short initiatives cannot. They enable organisations to engage more deeply with complex issues and demonstrate purpose in a way that feels credible rather than performative. For over two decades, our work with Research4Life, a UN partnership expanding access to research and training, has shown that supporting the Global South is not just philanthropy; it strengthens the entire research ecosystem, including the diverse community of authors, editors, and reviewers we rely on.
None of this is about spending more. It is about spending better. Strategic philanthropy requires asking difficult questions about where resources can genuinely add value – and whether organisations are prepared to stay engaged long enough to see meaningful results. We do this by having an independent advisory board and funding that is ringfenced and longer term. If corporate philanthropy is to meet rising expectations, it cannot sit on the margins of business strategy or function primarily as a PR exercise. The shift from short-term projects to sustained commitment will not be easy. But it may be the difference between philanthropy that looks credible and philanthropy that actually is.
Ylann Schemm is executive director of the Elsevier Foundation