I was lucky enough to be invited to Restaurant magazine's R150 last week, a gathering of the top restuarants in the UK, to hear restauranteurs talk about their experiences on the front line and also to introduce them to the Sustainable Restaurant Association, a new venture in which Good Business is involved (see here for the Guardian's take on the SRA)

There was lots of interesting comment but the talk which remained with me was from Simon Kossof, the Carluccios boss. He recounted the journey that the chain had been on to find both a charity partner and donation mechanism which worked for the business. After several false starts they had alighted on Action against Hunger which works with families in over 40 of the world's poorest counties to help feed children and build sustainable futures. working with Action Against Hunger had worked, where other partnerships had failed, because it was relevant and therefore engaged both employees and customers alike.

The second issue of the donation mechanism also needed several goes to get right. It started off as a 50pence cover charge on the bill but customer feedback quickly showed that this blanket policy was too demanding. The solution was to add the same charge to only one dish on the menu, allowing customers to choose to participate or not. Carluccio’s has been working with the charity since 2007 and expects to reach a total donation of £500,000 this year, so it's definitely working.

The most interesting comment though, was that, while the direct benefits of charity support are obvious, it can be difficult to quantify what the benefits of community activities might be to a business. Simon concluded that the return was real, genuine and had wide ranging benefits, but couldn't prove it.

This desire, to quantify, either ex-post or ex-ante, what the return on a responsibility investment is/will be is cropping up more and more often and presents a real challenge to the industry. Isolating the effect of a community investment on identified business objectives such as building brand value or improving employee retention is extremely complex, but it seems like finding a working model to do so is essential if the industry is going to evolve.