Prior to the Syrian refugee crisis of 2015, Jim Estill — founder and CEO of Guelph-based Danby Appliances — had always taken a more traditional approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR). As he explains it: “Basically, there’s a certain amount of money you need to keep to run a business, and I would donate everything above that every year.”

But during both the Syrian refugee crisis five years ago and today’s COVID-19 pandemic, Estill has felt a need to take things a step further. 

In 2015, after watching the migration crisis unfold in Europe, Estill decided to personally sponsor 50 refugees, offering them jobs at Danby Appliances for a stable financial base as they transitioned to life in Canada. Danby Appliances later developed a more formal 90-day program, called “Ease into Canada,” that gave its newly arrived employees information on settling in Canada and provided them with language training and business education. To date, Estill estimates that the company has helped more than 400 refugees settle in Canada.

In March this year, Estill again saw a need to take action as cases of COVID-19 swept across Canada. Knowing how many European nations had found themselves lacking the ventilators they needed to treat those affected, he saw a unique way for Danby — a refrigeration and specialty appliance manufacturer — to step in. He launched Ventilators for Canadians, an initiative bringing together engineers, entrepreneurs, and business leaders to manufacture ventilators to help Canada through the pandemic. 

What was it about both of these situations that moved Estill to do more than donate towards the cause? For Estill, the answer is simple: “With both the refugee and the ventilator project, it wasn’t something that you could just write a cheque for,” he explains. He continues: “Even if I said, ‘Oh, there aren’t enough ventilators here; I’ll donate a million dollars,’ what does that do? Someone has to make them. And the same thing goes with the refugee crisis: with private sponsorship, there is a financial component. But when we resettle families, someone has to meet them at the airport, set up an apartment for them, get them a bus pass, ride the bus with them. And that’s the difference between private resettlement and government resettlement: governments can write cheques and give you a bus pass, but governments can’t ride the bus with you.”

So how, exactly, can businesses ride the bus with their communities during times of crisis like the pandemic? 

Why businesses are well-positioned to respond in times of crisis

When it comes to global challenges, everyone has a role to play — and often, corporations can step in where governments, smaller charities and non-profits, and individual philanthropists can’t. It simply takes a bit of creativity to figure out the unique contribution a business can make.

In the case of Canada’s need for ventilators, Danby Appliances was well-positioned to fill that gap: the company was already equipped with an engineering team, an assembly line, and hundreds of employees who were ready to mobilize. 

The ability to organize large-scale support is another benefit companies can bring to the table during times of crisis, says Estill. Before Danby Appliances got involved in resettling refugee families in Guelph, church groups did the majority of this work in the city. “Very well meaning, but they can’t organize as well at scale,” he says. While smaller volunteer groups have the drive and desire to make an impact, they may not be familiar with the type of business processes that can streamline and scale charitable work, and “to get even 50 families resettled requires a lot of orchestration,” Danby explains.

The ability to organize large-scale support is another benefit companies can bring to the table during times of crisis.

As a company that routinely organized the work of 500 employees, however, Danby Appliances was able to scale that support. The Danby team brought together 800 volunteers, and used business management skills and processes to organize them: volunteers were given checklists to complete for each family they helped resettle, and when volunteers checked in with families, they completed scorecards reflecting how well they were settling in to life in Guelph.

How companies can pivot quickly to react to crises

Estill’s main piece of advice for business leaders who would like to respond to crises matches a famous Nike motto: “Just do it,” he says. “You already use entrepreneurship to solve business problems — you can also use it to solve any other real world problems.”

He stresses that companies don’t need to have solutions fully figured out before getting started. Earlier this year, as soon as it became apparent that Canada would be heavily impacted by coronavirus, Estill pivoted Danby Appliances’ operations to begin making ventilators. He started by gathering engineers at his company, and the team attempted to create a ventilator with off-the-shelf parts at his factory.

You already use entrepreneurship to solve business problems — you can also use it to solve any other real world problems.

“We were building prototypes, but ultimately, we weren’t able to perfect that design,” Estill says. “But what do you do? You need to try. And when one door closes, you look for other options.”

When the first design didn’t work, the team pivoted — and ultimately partnered with Baylis Medical, ABS Friction, Crystal Fountain, and JMP Solutions to create a Medtronic-designed ventilator. On April 7, the Government of Canada approved manufacturing of the ventilators, and Ventilators for Canadians has been hard at work producing them ever since.

The future of CSR post-pandemic

Not every business will have the ability to step in and provide assistance during the coronavirus pandemic — considering the current economic climate, many can only focus on survival at the moment. But post-pandemic, Estill predicts companies will need to focus on supporting their staff and building strong CSR initiatives if they want to remain relevant in an evolving culture.

“One of the first obligations a company has is to its staff. Running a good, profitable business that can pay people and keep them employed is doing community good,” Estill says. 

At the moment, Danby is still producing ventilators for Canada — but post-pandemic, the company’s first priority will be redistributing resources to areas of growth within the business. As people stay home, this will mean producing less appliances for resorts and academic institutions and manufacturing more home appliances.

The second area of focus for Danby will be supporting those who need it. “Governments and individuals will be financially challenged. It is incumbent upon all to be charitable to the extent they are able,” Estill says. “I see a great requirement to support base needs — pantries and soup kitchens. Eating is a basic human need. I worry about family violence with high stress, so see women’s shelters as being a worthy need. But all charities will need support now more than ever.”

For most companies post-pandemic, running a successful business and having a strong social impact might be more linked than ever before. 

Already, in the last few years, consumers have increasingly been shopping in line with their values, and top talent have gravitated toward companies who give back. And those trends are only likely to get stronger: a multinational Accenture survey recently found that 45 percent of respondents have made more sustainable shopping choices since the pandemic began.

“The pandemic is already changing people, and I really believe the pandemic is bringing people back to understand what their real values are,” Estill says. He continues: “Consumers are increasingly militant in essentially not letting companies get away with not being good corporate citizens, so companies will need to invest for the betterment of their own brand. You can almost say do it for yourself. If you don’t want to do it for the world, at least do it for yourself.”

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