This article originally appeared in The Guardian: Traditional business approaches to aid and charity are being abandoned

Corporations are putting the brakes on donation programs that don't produce enough business or social results and, in turn, traditional approaches to aid and charity are being abandoned.

And it really is for the better. Although the circumstances for many people around the world remain dire, there is reason for hope. According to USAID, the number of children in schools is rising, more people have access to clean water and child mortality rates are falling. These positive outcomes are the result of a new roadmap that aims to leverage the resources of governments, foundations, civil society organisations and corporations to spur economic growth.

Andrew Watt, president and CEO of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, describes Flint, Michigan as an example of the emerging collaborative approach to social change.

"Its city boundaries retracted by about 30 per cent, they had population flights, they had massively high unemployment and huge levels of people going through the detention system," says Watt.

"In spite of these hurdles, through partnerships between the city, corporations and NGO's, probationary services and education services, the community is beginning to thrive again. They are educating a work force, they are helping to re-establish people in the community when they come out of detention and they are helping those people to develop skills and create products and to develop a manufacturing basis to rebuild the tax base."

The evolution of corporate charity in Canada

Bruce MacDonald, President and CEO of Imagine Canada, believes that corporate charity is not ending but rather evolving into more sophisticated partnerships, approaches and outcomes.

"Companies are not giving money away," says MacDonald. "They are investing in social capital—the health, well-being, and quality of life in their communities: their employees and customers."

According to MacDonald, Canadian corporations should:

• Take the time to understand the strengths and needs of their partners and work together to address them.
• Recognize that solving complex social problems can't be accomplished through a series of time-limited grants.
• Be open about business objectives and to ensure they are providing sufficient resources for program delivery, measurement, evaluation and reporting.