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

I just returned from judging the 2010 Cause Marketing Forum Halo Awards.  And the winners are…. 

Actually, I am sworn to secrecy.  Sorry!  Finalists will be announced June 3^rd at the Annual Cause Marketing Forum Conference.  There truly are some amazing programs to look out for.

One of the best things about being a part of the cause-related world is that our collective field is constantly innovating, evolving, pushing the limits of what might be possible and, ultimately, raising the bar for all of us who practice in this space. It is an amazing experience to be part of a discipline that is old enough to recognize some best practices, yet still young and agile enough to be the source of fertile ground open to exploration. (more…)

It’s almost Spring and a new wave of CSR-related rankings have been hitting the presses. Fortune Magazine just released its 2009 World’s Most Admired Companies and 100 Best Companies to Work For lists.  Business Week unveiled its Top Customer Service Champs.  And Friday, CRO Magazine gave us its 100 Best Corporate Citizens.   Not to be outdone, the Financial Times and JustMeans just released their new 2008/2009 Corporate Social Innovation Award Winners.

If you doubt that senior executives are paying attention, watch how quickly the companies ranked near the top of the lists share these rankings on their websites and through press releases.  Although the lists still tend to be rather subjective, making the list is a badge of honor that is driving internal business decisions.  Great!

We are just starting to analyze these lists to look for trends.  All we can say is that we hope that more and more companies try to claw their way to the top of these lists through innovative CSR practices.

What interesting trends have you uncovered in these lists?