In those days, corporate philanthropy was a novel idea – one that was far from winning universal acceptance among shareholders. Indeed, for the most part, all that society expected of business was that it provide steady employment for its workers and a fair living wage. That a company should choose to extend its responsibilities to include the welfare of the communities in which it operated struck many people as a very odd concept indeed.

True, there had been some precedents. In Britain in the early years of the 19th century, the industrialist Robert Owen was attracting much attention by the widespread social reforms he successfully introduced in his cotton mills. The earliest example of such philanthropy in North America came towards the end of the century, when the U.S. railroad companies started helping build YMCAs in towns and cities along their routes in an obvious match of business and community interests. The towns gained valuable new community facilities; the railroad companies gained decent accommodation for their workers.

Today, there is scarcely any argument about the mutuality of interest that exists between business and the community. And, as society has evolved over the years, so has its expectations, and business has responded accordingly.

“Research confirms our belief that contributions by business to worthwhile causes enrich community life,” says Robert Peterson, Imperial’s chairman. “And in turn, a prosperous community creates a positive climate for business.”

Andrew Carnegie, the American industrialist and pioneer philanthropist, once remarked that it was easier to make money than it was to give it away wisely. Anyone involved with corporate philanthropy will agree that Carnegie had a point. No company, however philanthropically inclined it may be, can afford to support more than a fraction of the many thousands of deserving causes. It must decide where its contributions dollars will do the most good from its own particular perspective.

Since the mid-1990s, Imperial has chosen to put most of its charitable eggs into the education basket. This focus, says Peterson, is a logical one for a company like Imperial, which is critically dependent on a highly skilled workforce. “Our vision,” he says, “is to help build a lifelong learning system in Canada that ranks among the best in the world. In the long run, the only real competitive advantage a country like Canada will have is the quality of its workers. Our priority is on programs designed to help young people improve their math, science and technology skills. That’s not to say that other skills are not equally important or that we are not concerned about education in the humanities and the liberal arts – society needs doctors and architects, painters and writers, clergy and philosophers as well as engineers and geologists. But we decided that it made sense for Imperial, given the focus of its business, to invest in improving the teaching of math, science and technology. We also believe these areas are key to the development of Canada’s workforce in the future.”

Having established this focus, Imperial began to reshape its contributions policies to reflect the new emphasis. In 1998, for example, the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Toronto’s York University and the University of Toronto each received grants of $1 million to create or expand centres within their faculties of education dedicated to the development of new curricula in math, science and technology for primary and secondary schools. These new programs will draw upon a wide pool of expertise: the universities’ own education and science faculties; individual schools and school boards; and various nonprofit educational organizations.

Also in 1998, a $250,000 grant was made to the University of New Brunswick’s faculty of engineering in Fredericton to set up an outreach program for children, which will include visits to classrooms, science fairs, math and engineering competitions and science camps.

According to Barbara Hejduk, president of the Imperial Oil Charitable Foundation, which was established in 1994 to implement the company’s contributions policy, these university grants reflect a turning point for Imperial. “They have set a theme for our future donations to universities,” she says. “We believe that philanthropy is more effective – both for the donor and the recipient – if it has a clear target. The sharp focus on education and the sciences helps to direct all of our educational contributions – from kindergarten all the way to graduate school.”

And, says Hejduk, opting for the focused, rather than the ad hoc, approach to giving moves the company much closer to one of its key corporate objectives – contributions that make a real difference.

Imperial is bringing some of the best minds in Canadian education to bear upon the task of improving the teaching of math, science and technology. It is helping to marshal the resources of the universities – their faculties of education, science, math and engineering, their student volunteers and their other corporate partners – behind the classroom teacher. Its contributions focus, says Hejduk, is giving Imperial an opportunity to participate in Canada’s educational system in a meaningful way – “participate” being the operative word, she stresses. “We are very careful to provide wanted support, not interference.”

One project that Imperial sponsors is Let’s Talk Science, a national charitable organization dedicated to developing a society that is scientifically literate and globally competitive through innovative educational programs, research and advocacy. It offers effective science education programs for students between the ages of three and 15. One of these, for example, matches volunteer science graduate students from universities across Canada with elementary and high school teachers in one-on-one partnerships. During the 1998/99 school year, about 115,000 students and teachers across the country, as well as volunteers from 14 universities, took part in Let’s Talk Science programs.

The executive director of the organization, Dr. Bonnie Schmidt, credits Imperial’s ongoing sponsorship for much of the project’s success. “The support we have received from the company,” she says, “has allowed us to grow from a two-person project into an organization with a full-time staff of 14 and more than 20 associate scientists and educators, and with regional offices in Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Windsor and London.”

Other educational projects sponsored by the company include Esso Math Camps, a series of summer camps that have proved popular with students wanting to brush up on their mathematical skills, and the Royal Canadian Geographical Society’s Great Canadian Geography Challenge, an annual geography competition.

Although Imperial’s contributions focus on the sciences, the company recognizes that the best education is a well-rounded one. For this reason, not all of the two-thirds of its donations budget that is directed to children’s activities under the umbrella of the Esso Kids Program (amounting in 1999 to about $4.4 million) is designated for the sciences. In recent years, the company has sponsored such activities as children’s after-school and March-break programs at the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto; a student matinée series at Regina’s Globe Theatre; the Children’s Corner series at the Montreal Symphony Orchestra; the KidStudio Learning Centre at the Lynnwood Arts Centre in Simcoe, Ont.; the Kids on the Waterfront festival at the Eastern Front Theatre in Dartmouth, N.S.; and the Children’s Cushion Concerts staged by Symphony New Brunswick.

A common thread ties these contributions together – they are all directed at developing young people’s appreciation of the arts. And it seems to work. Very few of the children who enrolled in the Canadian Opera Company’s kids’ program, for example, knew anything about opera prior to participating in the program. In an early class, leaders heard the kids singing songs by the Spice Girls and the Backstreet Boys. By the last session, however, the same kids left the class singing opera choruses.

The classroom teacher of a 10-year-old participant wrote: “Mohammed has always been easily distracted. I’ve never seen him concentrate on anything like this before.”

And one eight-year-old girl came straight to the point. “How,” she wrote, “do I get a job as an opera singer?”

Although Imperial’s specified focus on young people and education may be relatively new, the company has been supporting educational projects throughout Canada for more than 70 years, making its first grant in this area in the mid-1920s. And for the past 49 years, the company has supported scientific research through a series of grants for university projects that investigate areas of interest to the company or to business and society in general. In 1999, Imperial gave $650,000 through this program to support 65 projects at 21 Canadian universities.

A typical one saw Professor Julia Foght of the University of Alberta supervise research into the use of hydrocarbon-eating microbes in cleaning up soil at contaminated sites – for example, abandoned service stations – in cold climates. In 1997, Foght went to Antarctica to collect additional samples of bacteria similar to those that had previously been isolated by a New Zealand scientist.

Apart from being adapted to cold temperatures, the bacterium is also unusual in that it grows well on hydrocarbons in soil. Extensive testing has also found that it is capable of degrading about 60 different petroleum compounds. “This is quite an exciting find,” comments Foght. “We’re eager to see exactly how low a temperature this organism will tolerate. We’re hoping it will be a very useful tool for the Canadian environment.”

Traditionally, Imperial has also been a strong supporter of community-based projects that improve the quality of life in places where the company has employees – in total, about 30 communities from coast to coast. Imperial, for example, supports the United Way in these communities, as well as a wide range of programs that enhance community health, such as those that emphasize safety and healthy life styles.

The Volunteer Involvement Program (VIP) represents another way in which Imperial participates at the community level. Through the program, cash grants are made to worthwhile causes in which current and retired employees or their spouses are involved. On behalf of individual employees, the company provides grants of up to $1,000, and for groups of employees up to $3,000. To date, Imperial has donated close to $2 million through this program – the money being used for a wide variety of causes ranging from landscaping the grounds at a senior citizens residence to buying hand-held radios for volunteer firefighters.

Giving away money might sound like a pleasant enough way of earning a living, but Hejduk says it has its downside. “Inevitably,” she says, “we have to say no to a lot of people and organizations, including some that are very deserving, either because they do not meet our criteria or simply because we do not have enough money to donate. Every year, we receive about 5,000 applications for help – we have to be disciplined in our responses.” The foundation has a set of written guidelines for making donations, and it adheres to them very closely. Hejduk suggests that anyone considering applying for a donation should first obtain a copy of these guidelines, either from the foundation itself or from the company’s Web site.

Since 1894, when Imperial gave away that first $100 to the Newfoundland fishermen’s mission, the company has supported thousands of deserving causes and people.

In the early days of corporate philanthropy, the company’s donations policy was very much of an ad hoc affair. But much has changed since then. As society’s priorities and needs have changed, Imperial’s pattern of giving has altered to keep pace with those changes.

The year 1928 marked the beginning of Imperial’s support of the arts. That was the year the company introduced The Imperial Oil Hour of Fine Music, a series of 26 hour-long concerts of classical music broadcast live over a network of radio stations from Montreal to Vancouver.

From this relatively modest beginning, Imperial went on to support professional and amateur orchestras from coast to coast, music ensembles, opera companies, virtually every ballet company in Canada, singing groups, musical competitions, upwards of 40 theatre groups, drama festivals of every conceivable size and shape, art galleries, museums large and small, and folk festivals by the dozen.

Beginning in 1952, when Canada’s fledgling film industry was in dire need of support, the company sponsored a number of films by Canadian directors that went on to win many awards and helped establish a firm foundation for a thriving industry. A dozen years later, Imperial decided to assemble a permanent collection of Canadian art, with the twofold objective of furthering public awareness of the arts and supporting the artists themselves. In the mid-1970s, an Imperial grant helped save a financially ailing Saturday Night magazine.

Noting the changing pattern of Imperial’s giving over the years, one wonders if the company will, in the future, continue to adjust its focus for philanthropic contributions.

“Quite likely,” says Hejduk. Imperial probably won’t ever turn its back completely on its support of education – after all, it’s been a strong supporter of various aspects of education for nearly 80 years. But that’s not to say that the company’s perception of how it can best support this country will not alter.

In the end, it’s society itself, with its ever-changing needs, that determines its own priorities.

Illustration by Sara Tyson