ARTICLES Is Corporate Engagement an Advocacy Strategy for NGOs? The Community Aid Abroad Experience

THIS article focuses on the question of whether corporate engagement can be used as an advocacy strategy for interna-tional nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The article will explore some of the characteristics of corporate engagement by studying the corporate engagement experience of the Australian NGO Community Aid Abroad (CAA) in its program, the Min-ing Campaign. The risks that emerged for CAA from policy deci-sions and processes within the development of the campaign are of central concern. CORPORATE ENGAGEMENT is the process whereby NGOs agreeor seek to engage with corporations. The levels of engagementare on a continuum from confrontation to sponsorship, with a wide range of relationships emerging between NGOs and cor-porations. Motivations for engagement are based on necessity, or a set of ideas, aimed at achieving social, moral, economic, ethical, or financial objectives. An NGO is an organization formally independent of the state and the private sector; it has its own constitutional identity that does not seek profit for individuals or shareholders. In the Australian context, the term generally refers to organizations with national or some over-seas activities, distinguishing it from purely local, community-based nonprofit organizations. The CAA Mining Campaign was an advocacy campaign with the objective of seeking improved conditions and material outcomes for peoples affected by Australian-based mining companies operating in countries in the Asia-Pacific region, where CAA had strong relation-ships with local NGOs. The campaign focus on mining was due to a rapid increase in Australian-based mining development throughou