Loading ...Bell Canada announced one of the biggest social project investments
In September 2010,BCE Inc.’s Bell Canada announced one of the biggest social project investments in Canadian history,pledging $50-million over the next five years to support mental health nationally. The subject has always held a stigma that has made raising funding more difficult than for other causes. A top tier Canadian corporation backed away at the last minute from a major sponsorship in mental health just a few years ago.
Bell’s move was in the works for a long time. The company wanted to find a program that would be relevant to employees and customers,national in scope and “potentially transformational,” says Mary Deacon,chair of the Bell Mental Health Initiative and former chief executive officer of the CAMH (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) Foundation. It also looked for a cause that needed support but didn’t get it,she adds.
Bell says it will use its scale and brand to create a national conversation about mental health issues. The projects it funds will be evaluated for specific outcomes. The first donation of $1-million has gone to the Royal Ottawa Hospital to expand its tele-psychiatry program. Bell expects to see the number of patients receiving tele-psychiatry [accessing the psychiatrist via webcam and high-speed internet from home or the workplace] to increase by 200 per cent over five years as a result. Sponsorship of research will follow and likely involve chairs and fellowships. “They will bring focus to an issue,increase capacity in those areas in the short term and long term,” Ms. Deacon says.
Internally,Bell plans to make sure it “walks the walk” by improving its own practices around mental health,including improvements in its employee assistance program. It plans to train managers about mental health issues and build a culture of support.
Bell showed a level of leadership and boldness in its move to support mental health,Ms. Robertson says. Five years ago,a lot of people would have told the telecom to avoid the issue like the plague. But Bell has approached the cause strategically and people can see the company wants to discuss real issues.
One of the few missteps a business can make in the field is committing to an initiative it won’t finish. That appears unlikely in Bell’s case. CEO George Cope spoke of his own mother’s fight with mental illness,giving the investment resolve from the top. Returns on community investments can be “quite squishy,” admits Ms. Deacon. But Mr. Cope has taken a personal role in the project and is applying to it the “same kind of business rigour and execution” he applies to all aspects of Bell’s business,she says.
