Corporate social responsibility in times of war: Interview with CEO Club

What should corporate social responsibility look like in times of war? Should business determine the country’s development vectors? CEO Club Ukraine unites the leaders of Ukrainian companies into a community and declares a new level of social responsibility: from individual initiatives through long-term systemic programs to a unified vision of Ukraine’s future. The club’s founder, Serhiy Gaidaychuk, shared his vision of the role of business in social transformation during the war and spoke about the club’s landmark projects.

How did CEO Club view social responsibility before the full-scale invasion?

Social responsibility has always been one of the foundations on which the club was created. Our entry criteria state that a person who has never been involved in social, charitable, or other projects cannot become a member of the club. But it’s important to make a distinction: we unite owners and CEOs, not their businesses, and our criteria relate to personalities: whether their value set includes an understanding that they need to do more than just make money.

Throughout the history of the club, we have implemented many different initiatives and individual tasks. Then we came to the realization that if we really want to make a big positive impact on society through our combined efforts, we must do it consciously and professionally.

Systemic initiatives of the CEO Club during the war

Most members of the CEO Club have their own charitable foundations and social projects, but we went further as a community. In the history of all civilizations, progress began when strong people learned to unite their efforts around something bigger. And five or six years ago, we started promoting such a culture in the club: to unite together in long-term systemic projects, not in individual initiatives. We believe that you cannot belong to the country’s new business elite unless you learn to do more than just your own efforts by joining forces with your peers.

“Greening Ukraine: the first step towards lasting change

One of our first systemic initiatives was the greening of Ukraine. We decided to plant trees on a massive scale for the long term. At the same time, we realized that planting trees alone is not enough to change the environment, it will not help. We need to change the minds of people. And the fastest way to do this is to let people plant a tree once. That’s why we, together with our partners, involved tens of thousands of people in this process.

My partners and I set up the Greening of Ukraine charity fund and supported the initiative with funds. Then we planted entire parks together. For example, each member of the club bought his or her own mature oak tree, and then we planted these 300 personalized oaks near Kyiv. Almost all club members joined in.

How families of fallen defenders are supported

Another example of shared responsibility is our community’s support for the families of fallen defenders. Since 2015, the club members have been supporting families where one of the parents died defending Ukraine. In 2022, this grew into a separate foundation, Soborna Ukraina, which currently supports 164 families and 228 children. Very often, these are families from the military units that the club tries to equip to perform successful combat missions.

How did you manage to consolidate this culture so that the club members could implement initiatives together?

We realized that in order to raise a businessman to the level of a social activist, we needed to expand his intellectual knowledge of the world. We then introduced philosophical programs at the club: we selected the most powerful philosophers in the country, each of whom led a group of 8-10 people in discussing life and value issues. This yielded a serious result: more and more club members joined systemic initiatives – long-term projects with established teams, a well-thought-out strategy, and systemic funding.

Generation+ program: helping children from disadvantaged families

Generation+ is an example of such a large project.

We decided to figure out why, despite the fact that many businesses support shelters, the statistics for them are only getting worse. We conducted an analysis and found that 80% of children belonging to vulnerable categories end up in prison over the next 10 years, becoming a burden to society.

First, they are not ready for independent living and do not understand how to survive in reality. Secondly, they unconsciously repeat the paths of their predecessors, which often leads to crime. Thirdly, for example, children in orphanages get used to dependence on the system and expect that everyone “owes them”. And when they leave, they continue to expect that they will be given everything. But no one does.

We saw the problem and decided to act. We studied existing programs in Ukraine and abroad and realized that they were ineffective, so we engaged experts and developed our own. The focus of our program is on children from vulnerable categories, students in grades 9-11. We set ourselves a minimum task: to systematically influence them during this period in such a way as to change the trajectory of their lives at least a little.

The program lasts for a year, and during this time we work with children from disadvantaged families and orphanages. We develop their thinking, soft skills, hard skills, motivation, and outlook. The project involves about 10 club members who are responsible for its implementation on a regular basis. The rest of the members support the children financially, each taking care of one or two children who are funded throughout the year.

Despite the war, we have been continuing this program for five years, training businesses to work together on long-term projects and join forces.

How do you evaluate the effectiveness of a program? How do you know if it is effective?

At the beginning of the program, a psychological interview is conducted with each child to assess their motivations, goals, skills, and views. At the end of the year, each of the 100 children has a new motivation to live, create, move, and develop. The children begin to realize that success is their responsibility and learn to act independently rather than wait for help. They develop teamwork skills, overcome their initial isolation and passivity. By communicating with successful people, children get new role models who inspire and motivate them to achieve more.

Today, progressive Ukrainian business has come to realize that supporting social initiatives is the right thing to do. But we need to learn to do it together, not alone. This is a systematic, complex and multifaceted process: shaping culture, creating role models, etc. We have been doing this for about 5 years.

How is it that, in addition to their own initiatives, business leaders also support social activities within the CEO Club?

In the club, business leaders see a different level of responsibility, a different depth of needs. First, the social context in the country is such that these people are in it, they really feel these challenges. They don’t need to be further explained. Secondly, we create a role model in the community, set a standard of behavior, and everyone who joins wants to meet these standards to feel like a full-fledged part of the pack. And third, we work with their worldview through humanitarian, systemic programs, such as those meetings with philosophers. The community is designed in such a way that you either join our code or leave it.

How is CEO Club rethinking business social responsibility after the full-scale invasion?

In the first weeks of the war, businesses simply organized themselves into groups, identified tasks, solved them themselves, and financed them themselves, replacing the state completely where it was not present. Now we raise funds in the club’s chats every day for various needs and tasks. This has a great impact, but it is not enough to transform the country.

With such donations, business is buying off a little bit – not from the frontline, but from the more complex tasks and problems that really need to be raised. In order not to lose the country, we need to ask a broader question: what is the role of business in the country?

In the previous 30 years, new Ukrainian business chose to stay out of politics. It was believed that politics was a dirty business that should be handled by someone else, not modern businessmen. But look at the international experience: there is no such model in any developed country in the world! Business is one of the key stakeholders of the country, which not only pays taxes to support the entire state, but also generates new ideas, development, and technologies. Business should participate in public governance.

I am convinced that he should become an active subject and stakeholder in his own country. He should ask himself: what kind of country do we want? What should we do more together to get this country? And how should we influence the rules of the game in this country?

This is the greatest social responsibility – not just to meet current needs, but to ask ourselves how to reformat the country, politics, institutions, how to grow into the role of subjectivity.

Unfortunately, even during the war, most people have not yet come to this realization. I talk to the most powerful businessmen and explain that the country is at a crossroads. When the war is over, we have two options. First, Ukraine has global opportunities that have never been seen in many years – the entire Western world is ready to become our partners and help. On the other hand, there are risks of disappearing completely – not because of an external enemy, but because of internal problems. If you, the business community, do not unite and join in to radically change the rules of the game in the country, we will not exist, we will simply disappear. And I am still told in response: let business do business, and politicians do politics.

I am not calling on anyone to enter public politics. But we need to take responsibility for the country. And to do this, we need to have a vision of what we want in this country and be willing to finance this vision. We need to support public organizations, volunteer movements, and new political forces – young, progressive ones – that will implement this vision. This is the key role of Ukrainian business at this historical stage.

Do you manage to create a common vision with the actors and understand where you are going and why?

We are currently working on this task, and it is not easy. Businesses want to simplify everything – to hire an expert to write a strategy or vision for them. But I am categorical here. If we really want to achieve change, this vision must be in everyone’s head, everyone must believe in it. And to do this, we must create it together. And this will take more than a week, it is a systematic, living process.

We are moving in this direction. For about a year and a half now, we have been working on the project “Vision of Ukraine’s Future” – a series of interviews with different people about the country’s prospects. Now we have joined forces with the Institute for the Future, and we plan to invite many business associations to this process and create a common vision. We want to involve as many people as possible, to infect a large number of opinion leaders with this vision, and then the country has a chance, and business has a subjectivity.

I am trying to help new Ukrainian businesses rise to the level of an entity. We need to crystallize new energies in the country, form new elites from different spheres, launch them into the political process, and concentrate energy around the project of Ukraine’s development.

The most organized, systematic, still resourceful and medium-term thinking class of people in the country is business, which can act as this catalyst, the organizational core. But we cannot do this if we do not have a vision of the country’s future.

Corporate social responsibility of business in Ukraine during the war is not only about helping but also about transforming the country. How do you see the role of business in the changes? Share your thoughts on our social media channels.

More examples of social responsibility can be found on the Giving Tuesday Blog.