causenation

It has been a big week for national service and volunteerism!

In an important move for both the national service and the corporate social responsibility communities, yesterday President Obama nominated Nike Foundation President, Maria Eitel, to head the Corporation for National Service. When confirmed, she will bring her extensive global business, philanthropy, and CSR experience to running the nation’s domestic service programs, including AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, and Learn & Serve America.

Since she has been instrumental in crafting and managing Nike’s corporate responsibility strategies, we hope she’ll find new ways to encourage companies to partner with national service programs and engage their employees.

She’ll inherit this position just as programs like AmeriCorps are poised to grow exponentially.  Earlier this week the President signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act.  Although the funding still needs to be authorized by Congress, this legislation will take national service to historic levels.  Details can be found at Service Nation; select highlights include:

• Grows the number of AmeriCorps volunteers nationwide to 250,000, up from 75,000.
• Establishes 4 new service corps to address key needs in low income communities – Clean Energy Corps, Education Corps, Healthy Futures Corps, and Veterans Service Corps.
• Establishes Youth Engagement Zones to empower low-income high school students and out-of-school youth in volunteer efforts.
• Creates 2 fellowships to support social entrepreneurs, boomers and retirees, the private sector and Americans from all generations into service.

In releated news, our recent causenation post on corporate volunteerism talks about the increasing corporate enthusiasm for service and new investments businesses are making.   

National service – just do it!

While waiting for spring to arrive in Boston, we are spending too much time watching TV and analyzing the ads.  Here’s a taste of our Earth Day viewing:

Green Stamp of Approval:   Wal-Mart’s “Earth Month Thanks” ad captures the spirit of the anniversary.  Wal-Mart understands the power of mobilizing their 200 million customers and are moving people toward earth friendly products.  The best news is that for Wal-Mart this isn’t just an “Earth Day Special.”  Year-round they are taking a lead on sustainability issues.  They certainly aren’t perfect, but we give them strong marks for making progress and pushing consumers and vendors to action. Check out their earth-related sales promotions and their master sustainability activities on their  website.  Also a January 2009 New York Times article tells the story of their green evolution.   

IBM’s “Tree Hugger” Series also gets our green stamp of approval.  Although, we have not seen them in an Earth  Day rotation, they help make the business case.  View them on our recent causenation post – ads worth watching.

Green Washing: The Payless Plant  a Tree Ad  rings hollow.  We have trouble making the connection between shoes, trees and the Nature Conservancy.  (more…)

Despite the economic downturn and tightening budgets, it seems the opportunities to speak, learn, and network in the CSR and Citizenship world are proliferating.  How can CSR professionals get the smartest bang for our conference buck?    

We sat down with veteran conference planners, turned executive speaker consultants, Lori Zetlin and Jeanne Tee, of S3 – Strategic Speaker Services, whose clients include IBM, Fed Ex, and NetApp, to get their take on the rapidly evolving world of CSR conferences.

causenation: It seems there are more CSR and Citizenship conferences than ever – even in this economy.  Why do you think this is happening?

S3:  We’ve been tracking CSR conferences since the early days of BSR and the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship, and without a doubt there are more this year than ever before. (more…)