Stakeholder Engagement

Simply giving cash is like throwing money away, when compared with the good a company can achieve by donating its expertise

Climbing Borneo’s Mount Kinabalu is hard work. Climbers are legally required to hire a guide. Not that it always helps: guides sometimes just abandon the tourists and climb with each other. And why wouldn’t they? There’ll be a fresh batch of tourists tomorrow who will be obliged to give them money.

When I went up the mountain, I was lucky: the guides supporting my group stuck with us, even on our incompetently slow descent. They even missed their village football match for us.

Why did they care? Probably because I was travelling with Intrepid Travel, a global “adventure tour” organiser that takes loads of groups to Borneo. Intrepid Travel has given generously to the guides’ village, supporting teaching programmes and providing learning resources. Clever: the villagers value their good relationship with Intrepid, and consequently the guides look after Intrepid’s clients assiduously.

Is Intrepid’s work in that village “charity” or is it “investing...