causenation

Congratulations to our client the Boston Beer Company for receiving the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy’s (CECP) prestigious Founder’s Award for Excellence in Corporate Philanthropy.  This award recognizes the Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream® program for its demonstrated CEO leadership, dedication to measurement, successful partnerships, and innovation.

We are proud to be a part of the Samuel Adams team and honored to work on this exciting program that supports low and moderate income micro-entrepreneurs in the food and beverage industry.

Each year CECP honors three companies. In 2010, Boston Beer won in the smaller company category (under $2bn in annual revenues) and shared the stage with Intel’s Teach Initiative and General Mill’s African Women and Children’s Hunger Program.

To learn more visit:  Center Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy, CECP Press Release, Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream, CNN feature, Boston Globe OpEd, Jim Koch on CNBC, Cause Consulting Case Study

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…)

Don’t waste another minute – we actually don’t think it matters what you call it. Citizenship. Sustainability. Corporate Social Responsibility. Corporate Involvement.

The labels are all around us, yet they are the least important part of the equation. No one label is exactly right, and none of them are wrong. This evolving discipline represents diverse objectives, strategies, tools, initiatives, and intentions.

Labels aside, what is imperative is that each organization brings its values into practice; embraces them as their own; and does so with a shared vision and common language to set goals, develop strategies, implement programs, and monitor progress.

In the end what is really important is that as professionals we each lead, teach, and communicate in a way that makes sense for our organizations, so that our stakeholders can play their role in strengthening business and impacting society.

What are you calling “it,” how does that work for your company?

As President Obama and Congress go to work trying to breathe life into the economy, we thought it wise to take the pulse of causenation and see how it’s fairing in these strained times. We talked with dozens of folks from across the spectrum of professionals who have some skin in the Citizenship game.

What we’re hearing across the board – from foundation heads to corporate CSR teams, from corporate communications VPs to community relations and public affairs managers is this: Everyone is tightening their belts and trying to do more with the same or fewer resources. But the real challenge they are facing is how to meet the demands of the economy and continue to move the ball forward on their Citizenship efforts. Because no one we talked to is getting pushback that Citizenship is any less of a priority, in fact, just the opposite. The emphasis is great; the resources just aren’t the same.

So we’re asking, how can we continue to sow the seeds of Citizenship? How can we hold tight to the traction that corporate America has been gaining on critical business and social objectives at this time when the country needs stability and progress most? While few seem to be able to do anything new, we think it is precisely the right time to renew – commitments, assets, partnerships, and strategies.

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