CSR - Corporate Social Responsibility.
I hate that term.
I'm not a corporate, and responsibility is a given, not an add-on.
Having said that, I understand the principle of legacy and social legacy, and so in our place that's what we call it.
As I've said to her many times before, The Campbell Clinic Group donates 1% of its turnover to social legacy projects.
Why on earth would we do that?
We're at least £500,000 into that, and if you pay the tax at 40% on that, that means I'm £300,000 personally down.
That's a Ferrari 488.
Why would we do this then? What's the benefit? Why should we?
There are so many reasons to be involved in social legacy projects, whatever they are, but the most important one, I guess, is this.
As people who work in dentistry at whatever level, we are enormously, enormously privileged.
Our industry will stay, and people will need our work.
We will get paid, and we will have somewhere to live, probably a car to drive and the chance to go on holiday.
We'll have the chance to eat and the chance to eat at places that are not our home.
We'll also have the chance to help other people and to have a purpose.
Business exists for the good of society, not separate to society.
Businesses are an integral part of society.
Andrew Carnegie, who was born in Dunfermline in the 1800s and then travelled to America to become the richest man in the world through the manufacture of steel, had a chequered history.
There was an incident at one of his factories where people died when a private army came in to break up a strike; it's called Homestead. Look it up if you want to know more.
Either as a result of that, or just because he was that guy anyway, he decided to give almost all of his money away in the end.
He was as rich as Elon Musk (relatively), but he invented the mantra: 'He who dies wealthy dies disgraced ’.
That's CSR, the Social Legacy.
If you don't have much, you will not know what it's like to have enough.
But if you have enough, it’s really morally wrong to have more than enough.
We should all take a close look at that.
Social legacy projects engage the team.
They inspire care in a healthcare environment.
They create enormous loyalty.
The right thing to do.
Start investigating it now.
Put a line in your budget for social legacy and then spend it.
Watch the brilliant things that happen.