Panasonic NPO Support Fund Strengthens NPO Organizations

The Presentation of Official Notices of Support by Hidetoshi Osawa, Executive Officer of Panasonic Corporation

The Fiscal 2011 presentation ceremony for the Panasonic NPO Support Fund, which helps NPOs to strengthen their organizational foundations, was held on November 10, 2011 at Panasonic Center Tokyo. It was attended by a total of 90 people, including representatives of the NPOs chosen to receive support, the judging committee, other NPO officials, and social contribution managers from other companies.

A Scene of Specified NPO Activities, Network for Discovering Play Parks in Yokohama
A Scene of Activities of Specified NPO, Arakawa Clean Aid Forum

This fund is one of the most important corporate citizenship programs at Panasonic, combining the two key fields of environmental affairs and education for the next generation with the aim of realizing a sustainable society. It was established in 2001, following recognition of the need to strengthen the organizational foundations of NPOs in order to develop stronger citizenship activities geared toward the solution of social issues. Ever since, it has been gradually improved into a more and more useful program to support the target NPOs in bolstering their organizations.

Based on the results of previous initiatives, the program has been revised this year to focus on "capacity building through organizational diagnosis." Here, a method of organizational diagnosis is applied whereby consultants will look to identify organizational and operational issues within the NPOs, and to offer a direction for their solution so that the NPOs may independently implement reforms and achieve continued development. Support is provided in two steps, first organizational diagnosis support and capacity building support.

In Fiscal 2011, a total of fifteen million yen will be donated to twelve groups working in the environmental field (eight for organizational diagnosis support, four for capacity building support), and a further fifteen million yen to fifteen groups working with children (eight for organizational diagnosis support, seven for capacity building support), making for a grand total of thirty million yen spread across 27 different NPOs.

Presentations of Each NPO Activity

Comments from those attending the ceremony included:
"This was a good opportunity to reconsider the roles of NPOs within society, and to look at my own organization objectively" (NPO representative); and "There were many good points of reference and resonance I could take from listening directly to these NPOs, and this has given me a great deal of positive motivation to push forward similar support initiatives in my company" (representative of other company).

On November 11, the day after the ceremony, a kickoff meeting was held for the Panasonic NPO Support Management Innovation Program, a group training-based organizational diagnosis program launched this year. Eight of the sixteen NPOs selected to receive organizational diagnosis support took part in the meeting. Organizational diagnosis will now be promoted both through individual consulting and through group training sessions, consisting of classroom lectures, workshops, and peer learning.