causenation

The 2009 Major League Baseball All-Star Game launched last night with a “high-five” to community service and volunteerism.  Five living U.S. Presidents honored five specific community heroes, during over five minutes of live prime time national television.  Kudos to Major League Baseball for helping to further embed civic participation and giving into popular culture.  If you missed this part of the pre-game show check it out.

Giving and volunteerism was core to the “Going Beyond” theme heralded throughout the All-Star calendar. During the Home Run Derby MasterCard held the “Hit it Here” promotion to benefit Stand Up to Cancer.  Also did you notice the RBI tally board in the outfield – throughout the game both teams were competing to hit the most RBI’s triggering a donation to charity. One-offs to be sure, but connected to a bigger, emerging national theme.

Recognizing “All-Stars Among Us” set a positive tone for the game and purposely links directly into President Obama’s call for community service through “United We Serve,” a program which encourages all Americans to be part of building a new foundation for America by engaging in sustained and meaningful community service. President Obama is encouraging all Americans to visit serve.gov to find service opportunities in their area.  To see how some companies are responding visit the United We Serve on-line community.

Be on the lookout all Summer and Fall for more and more companies to be finding ways to engage both their employees and other Americans in service and giving. 

Now, this is a game we’d love to see people and companies compete at – Play Ball!

I recently had the privilege of volunteering along with the employees of our client, Samuel Adams, at their “Speed Coaching” event. Speed Coaching is an integral part of Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream, the company’s signature philanthropy program that helps lower-income food and beverage microentrepreneurs build and strengthen their small businesses, realize their dreams, and achieve economic independence. The program offers microloans, and other hard-to-come-by resources, through the Samuel Adams Microloan Fund with nonprofit partner ACCION USA.

Speed Coaching is cool! Building off the idea of Speed Dating (which I’ve only heard about, never experienced) Boston Beer staff, and other volunteers, meet with microentrepreneurs in short, spirited sessions offering their expertise in package design, branding, PR, finance, legal, sales and distribution, and marketing to entrepreneurs who often lack access to networks and mentors who can help them with these aspects of running a small business. Entrepreneurs spend the evening rotating through the discipline specific stations for 20 minutes each – getting practical tips, directional advice and ideas. Some entrepreneurs brought their food, others brought logos and package concepts, yet others came with a specific business problem they needed help solving. Read the rest of this entry »

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.  Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

To be successful today as corporate citizenship / corporate social responsibility (CSR) professionals, there are few excuses for not knowing your company’s activities and business cold.  

As hundreds of corporate executives gather for the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship Annual Conference, it is time for a POP QUIZ – how well do you know your business?

How did you do?

If you scored 5/6, well  done!  Our guess is that if you are that connected to your business, then are you are probably also driving citizenship activities toward business results.  Most likely you are positioning CSR as a set of solutions and have already earned a seat at numerous strategy tables.  Please share your journey with causenation. 

If you scored 3/6, you get a Read the rest of this entry »

Mark Feldman pumping water while visiting development projects in Zambia

Today is World Water Day. I’ve been working on clean drinking water issues for years and was inspired to check in.

Unfortunately, the world water crisis is as dire as ever: 

• Nearly one billion people lack access to safe drinking water.
• Almost 4,500 children die each day to water related diseases.

There are no simple solutions.  Water issues are complicated by geographies, politics, cultures, and poverty.  Not only is water essential for life,  but access to safe drinking water is directly correlated to improvements in personal health, educational achievement, and worker productivity. 

Over the past several years, corporate interest in water issues has moved from being cold, to warm, to now being “hot.”  We’ve been watching three positive trends: Read the rest of this entry »

One of the places we look for the vital signs of causenation is in popular culture. We admit it, we’re fascinated. From celebrities using their fame to bring attention to important issues, to the “been there, done that” rubber wristbands, we love to see how cause, culture, companies, and citizen action collide to spark or fuel a movement or illuminate a trend in causenation.

Over the years we’ve seen an increase in companies using their advertising to advance a cause, issue, or nonprofit. Early on, companies were only pushing products linked to a cause – likely because that was the extent of their commitments. Today they are using advertising to express values; communicate their expertise or business practices related to social issues; and leverage existing CSR and community programs.  Our favorites make the business case for integrating social issues and bring the viewer to that crossroad of strengthened businesses and positive societal impact.

One of the best in our opinion is IBM’s Tree Hugger ad.  We love it for its self deprecating humor, creativity, and the fact that the business case is so rock solid you can’t help but support it.   Others we like …. Read the rest of this entry »

Paul Levy of Beth Isreal Deaconess Hospital

In today’s Boston Globe, columnist Kevin Cullen wrote about a magnificent move by Beth Israel Hospital CEO Paul Levy. Levy asked higher-wage earning employees to think creatively about how they could collectively shoulder some of the cost-cutting burden to save the jobs of the hospital’s lower-wage earning employees. Levy reported receiving hundreds of emails an hour and his bold request and gesture generated a rousing round of applause from the employees gathered. We think this is leadership at its best, at the time it is needed most.

The fact is, and it’s no surprise, employees all over America are hurting. And we’re not just talking about those who have recently been laid off with the massive cutbacks rippling across corporate and nonprofit America alike. Read the rest of this entry »

You won’t be surprised to hear that another set of indicators from the Conference Board point downward for 2009.  Corporate philanthropy will dive this year – thirty-five percent of companies surveyed by the Conference Board said they would make fewer grants this year and another twenty-two percent are considering reductions. 

However, there is also good news for causenation.  In this time of need, companies and individuals are embracing volunteerism.  Forty-five percent of companies in the Conference Board survey say that they will be increasing resources dedicated toward corporate volunteerism.  USA Today reported this week that applications are soaring at government-funded service programs like Peace Corps, Teach for America and Americorps.  Buoyed by the President’s call to action and uncertainty in job market, community service is coming of age again. Read the rest of this entry »