Community Development: Morgan Stanley Challenges Its Employees to Get Involved

Today’s blog is republished from the CSRwire blog, part four of the Civic 50 series.  Today’s post is written by Jackie Norris, Executive Director of Points of Lights’ Corporate Institute.

A few years back, New York investment banker Hashem Dabbas didn’t know much about East Harlem’s need for classes in English as a Second Language. The vice president of Morgan Stanley’s global industrialist group was an adviser on strategic financial modeling to major international corporations, not to neighborhood nonprofits. Now he’s both. Dabbas was on a four-member team that

Morgan Stanley

sent to work with the Union Settlement Association to find ways the agency could survive the economic downturn while continuing to offer education and service programs to East Harlem families. The team’s solutions won first place in Morgan Stanley’s Strategic Challenge of 2012, which resulted in a $25,000 grant to launch the new approach. “Giving people a skill set and tools like learning English to get a better job has a tremendous multiplier effect, and I find that enormously rewarding and valuable” Dabbas said. For involving its employees in vital community projects like this one, Morgan Stanley earned top honors in

employee civic growth

last year from

The Civic 50,

a ranking of America’s most community-minded companies.

The Civic 50

, a partnership between National Conference on Citizenship and Points of Light, ranks corporations on seven dimensions of local involvement. The

employee civic growth

dimension requires a business to show that its approach motivates employees to get involved in the community and help meet local needs.

From Grant Making to Strategic Partnerships

Morgan Stanley has been funding Union Settlement for more than 20 years, but through the Strategy Challenge it deepened the engagement by better leveraging its employees’ talent. The group applied to Morgan Stanley’s annual Strategic Challenge program and was one of 12 community organizations selected to host a company team of advisers for eight weeks. The timing, during what Dabbas called the organization’s post-recession “downward spiral,” was perfect. In 2010, the group offered 45 free ESL and GED prep classes to the people of East Harlem. By 2012, with grants and donations drying up, it could only offer 18. Dabbas’ team researched other area ESL and GED providers, studied their curricula and pricing, and examined Union Settlement operations from A to Z, spotting a need Union Settlement could fill to raise funds while remaining affordable and true to its history: fee-based classes on weekends and a “Saturday academy” offered as a premium product. “They just needed a third-party sounding board to give them some creative ideas,” Dabbas said. “That’s what I do in my day job—we’re advisers on strategic questions, financial modeling, figuring out price points, market research. That was broadly what we did with Union Settlement.” Union Settlement’s leaders were thrilled. The Morgan Stanley team was “superbly talented and brought tremendous levels of analysis, creativity and commitment to this project,” said Executive Director David Nocenti. “Its recommendation will lead to better jobs and greater opportunities and will have a transformational impact in East Harlem.”

A Cultural Commitment

But that’s not all. Another Morgan Stanley team worked with Feeding America, a leading domestic hunger-relief nonprofit, in 2011 to help make the most of its resources. After months of study, the team recommended an online “deal café” where Feeding America’s 202 member food banks could share purchasing bargains in the areas they shared – office supplies, fuel, etc. – without alienating local suppliers or causing layoffs. When fully implemented, the program is expected to save the food bank network $10 million annually. Morgan Stanley runs smaller projects among its 1,300 offices in 42 countries, challenging 62,000 employees to help their divisions and regional offices excel in service and fundraising campaigns. And this past June, the firm’s senior leaders and 21,000 employees took part in the firm’s Global Volunteer Month, devoting 176,000 hours of service to 1,000 projects worldwide, according to Joan Steinberg, president of the Morgan Stanley Foundation. What all these projects add up to is a big companywide commitment to community development. Hashem Dabbas will stay involved with Union Settlement for a long time to come. “You’d have to be heartless not to run through a wall for these people,” he said. To learn more about Morgan Stanley, and employee civic growth, register for the next

Civic 50 webinar

on Wednesday, April 24, 2:00-3:00pm EST.

Cause Alignment: Capital One’s Formula for Aligning CSR With Everything It Does

Today’s blog is republished from the CSRwire blog, part three of the Civic 50 series.  Today’s post is written by Jackie Norris, Executive Director of Points of Lights’ Corporate Institute.

A few years ago, Bladimir Martinez, then 16, was chosen as one of 10 high school students to run a real Capital One bank branch inside Parkdale High School in Prince George’s County, Maryland — a county where only 44 percent of high school graduates are considered college or career ready. In the few years since then, Martinez has transitioned from an ambitious kid who was “not much interested in school” into a bank teller and college student studying business. Through Capital One’s student-run bank program, students like Martinez are not only responsible for operating a bank branch and offering savings products to their fellow students and faculty, but also for teaching their peers about money management topics such as budgeting and saving. The program provides real-world job experience – all of the students receive professional job training, entry-level bank teller salaries, mentoring, and career – and college preparatory experiences through colleges and universities.

Strategic Community Development: Connecting Education with Empowerment

The program, which focuses on schools in low- to moderate-income communities, has already paid off for many of the students. To date, more than 90 percent of the program’s alumni have since enrolled in college – a decision that could be worth a million dollars in income over the course of a lifetime for each of those young adults. Martinez traces his turnaround to one of his first interviews with a Capital One Bank mentor who left a lasting impression on him. “That was the moment I thought, ‘To be this guy, I have to go through this.’ I realized that nothing happens overnight. School is a must in my life now.” Financial literacy, education and workforce development are among the goals of Capital One’s Investing for Good strategy, which aligns the bank’s community engagement programs, funding decisions and employee skills with its core business capabilities as a bank. “We believe that strong business and strong community go hand in hand,” said Carolyn Berkowitz, Managing Vice President, Community Affairs; and President of the Capital One Foundation. “We recognize that creating thriving communities doesn’t happen overnight – it requires a long-term focus and commitment, coupled with deep partnerships with effective nonprofit organizations and community leaders, to drive lasting economic outcomes. Our community engagement goes beyond

‘checkbook philanthropy’ –

we don’t just write a check and walk away,” Berkowitz adds.

“

We focus on making strategic, long-term investments – through philanthropy, lending, and volunteering — to catalyze economic growth in our communities.” This approach helped Capital One earn top honors in

cause alignment

last year from

The Civic 50

,

a ranking of America’s most community-minded companies.

The Civic 50

, a partnership between

National Conference on Citizenship

and

Points of Light

, ranks corporations on seven dimensions of local involvement. The

cause alignment

dimension requires a firm to show that it uses its workers’ professional skills in community engagement programs that are consistent with its core business competencies and objectives.

Investing for Good: Focusing on Scale

One way Capital One does this is through its Investing for Good pro bono volunteer program, through which its employees in departments such as Brand, IT, Legal, and HR leverage their unique business skills to help local nonprofit organizations enhance their ability as a business to address local community needs. For example, last year Capital One employees stepped in to help the Legal Aid Justice Center of Charlottesville, Va., find a solution when the economic downturn flooded Legal Aid with requests from new clients just as the organization’s government funding was cut by 20 percent. Legal Aid lost half of their staff attorneys as demand for their services increased by nearly 60 percent. “We’d send emails and faxes and call lawyer after lawyer after lawyer” trying to match each client in need with a volunteer attorney somewhere in the state with the right skills for the case, said Alex Gulotta, executive director of the Legal Aid Justice Center. “Calling and calling and calling is not very efficient.” Capital One sent a team of 15 volunteers from its legal, systems analysis, supply chain management communications and information technology departments to find a new approach. The result of that collaboration was Justice Server, an electronic data management system that gives volunteer attorneys across Virginia easy access to Legal Aid’s computerized files on all the cases needing help. “This is now our primary case-management system, and other states are looking at the model,” Gulotta said. The Center “needed a different kind of technical solution for organizing their work, the kind of thing Capital One people develop all the time,” said Berkowitz. “And our people got involved in ways they feel really great about.” When Capital One channels its employees’ talents to solve community problems, “they bring back to the company new leadership skills and are better employees,” Berkowitz said. In fact, more than 90 percent of Capital One managers said their associates’ leadership development skills were demonstrably improved after engaging in pro-bono work. And when Capital One brings more to the community than just donations, it “helps make people in the community confident that we’re the kind of folks they’d like to bank with and it fosters long-term economic growth in the community that is also good for business. It’s a win-win for us,” added Berkowitz.

The Citi Foundation Finds New Ways to Measure the Impact of CSR Efforts

Today’s post is part two on the The Civic 50, published Feb. 26 on CSRwire. This blog is written by Ilir Zherka, Executive Director of the National Conference on Citizenship decodes the second dimension: measurement and strategy.

It’s not easy to capture the effects of philanthropic programs on people’s lives. But Citi recently earned top honors in

measurement and strategy

from

The Civic 50

, a ranking of America’s most community-minded companies, thanks in part to the work of the Citi Foundation, the bank’s philanthropic arm.

The Civic 50

, a

partnership between National Conference on Citizenship and Points of Light, ranks corporations on seven dimensions of local involvement. The 

measurement and strategy

 dimension requires a firm to show that it has defined its programs’ goals, performance metrics and interim indicators – or in plain English, that it can trace its community funding to actual changes in individuals’ lives.

How Did The Citi Foundation Do It?

First, they realized they had room to grow. While the Foundation has always been able to count how many people its community-oriented grants and projects reach, getting beyond that was a challenge. “We were really tracking activities, not the impact we were trying to achieve,” recalled Pamela Flaherty, president & CEO of the Citi Foundation and Director of Corporate Citizenship at Citi. Second, they implemented a results-oriented measurement system, reevaluating their strategy and designing new ways to identify and track the impact of their grantmaking on people’s lives. People like Ernst Nicolas. A New York resident, Nicholas came to The Financial Clinic for help in sorting out his debts, repairing his credit rating and getting his spending under control. The clinic is one of 31 organizations seeking to strengthen their financial capability coaching programs through the work of the Citi Foundation’s partner NeighborWorks America. With coaching, Nicolas made critical changes. “Right now I have my priorities set,” Nicolas said. Top on his new budget: rent, child care and transportation, while one-on-one counseling is helping him restore his credit and rebuild his savings.

I do have a plan, and because of the coaching I’m getting, I’m more disciplined now when it comes to finances.

A Measurement System Built Around Results

The results-oriented measurement system allows the Citi Foundation to focus on creating positive gains for individuals and their communities. And they can begin to understand how their efforts are helping nonprofit partners to transform and how all this is informing broader systemic change. Maggie Grieve, NeighborWorks director of success measures, said she worked with the Citi Foundation to develop yardsticks for people’s financial status, habits of behavior and resilience, “things that hadn’t been easily measured before.” The Foundation provided a $5 million grant to NeighborWorks to put the criteria into practice: selecting the 31 organizations whose financial coaches would be trained, establishing project objectives, planning training activities and setting benchmarks.

The Citi Foundation really partnered with us to achieve mutual goals,” Grieve said. “We were able to demonstrate that significant numbers of low- and moderate-income people who participated were really able in less than a year to make progress toward their financial objectives.

The 400 coaches trained under the program have served some 65,000 people in just two years.

Using Measurement & Results to Scale Impact

Third, the Foundation uses the results of its new measurement system to lay a solid foundation for scaling up impact. The Citi Foundation hopes the new tracking system will show that its grant to NeighborWorks helped create a financial coaching model that can be used nationally to assist low- to moderate-income individuals in adopting positive financial behaviors that build and preserve their assets over time. This investment is part of Citi and the Citi Foundation’s commitment to “financial inclusion” – ensuring widespread access to affordable, high-quality financial products, services and asset-building opportunities for individuals, families and communities. The more people who become financially savvy, carry less debt and rack up more savings, like Ernst Nichols, the better for any community and for the national economy. And finally, the Foundation goes beyond grants and numbers to leverage the expertise and resources of its people to enhance philanthropic efforts. Its Volunteer Management System identifies ways employees can help, then tracks what they do. In 2012, Citi employees contributed more than 1.3 million volunteer hours in efforts they know made a difference. To learn more about optimizing your company’s community engagement programs, check out this upcoming

webinar

featuring IBM’s success in the “Community Partnerships” scoring dimension and Citi’s success with “Measurement and Strategy.”

The Power of Collaborative Volunteering: OneOC & CVCOC Oak View Project

Today’s guest post is written by Dan McQuaid, President/CEO of OneOC. Dan has more than 25 years of leadership experience as a chief executive officer, community leader, board chairperson, organization consultant and trainer.

Freshly painted public spaces including a concrete skateboard platform, playgrounds, and school buildings along with improvements to soccer fields and school gardens made in the low-income Oak View neighborhood of Huntington Beach were the outward results of the first combined volunteer project planned and executed by the Corporate Volunteer Council of Orange County (CVCOC) with project coordination by OneOC.

“When they set out to improve the Oak View neighborhood, the CVCOC members were thrilled to learn that they would work side by side with Oak View community members. This project brought together 11 nonprofits, 16 companies, and 75 neighborhood residents, all working together to build a stronger, more vibrant quality of life for those who call Oak View home,” said Rob DeLiema, president of BJ’s Restaurants Foundation and task force leader of CVCOC’s combined corporate volunteer project. CVCOC was launched in January 2012 in collaboration with OneOC, a nonprofit 501(c) 3 organization committed to accelerating nonprofit success through volunteer, training, consulting and business services.

The CVCOC Oak View project was the first combined company-volunteer effort.  This expansive project brought together 500 volunteers, including grateful local residents and energized employees from 16 Orange County companies on the morning of Saturday, February 23, and did as much for the spirits of the participants as it did for the physical places they touched.  This Oak View neighborhood is a densely-populated neighborhood of 10,000 residents in one square mile, 32% of whom live below the poverty line.

The project contributed to the overall Oak View Renewal Project that seeks to narrow the cultural, social, educational, health and economic gap between Oak View and the remainder of Huntington Beach and to serve as a model for community development.

CVCOC and OneOC’s efforts show the power of collaborative volunteerism. Diane Killeen, manager, Disney VoluntEARS and Cast Initiatives, Disneyland Resort and CVCOC vice chair agreed: “The success of our first CVCOC joint effort demonstrated our power to provide a community-based solution though volunteerism, both as individual corporate members and as part of the collaboration. Along the way, our Disney VoluntEARS had the opportunity to work closely with people from companies they may never have met otherwise and be a part of an incredible effort to brighten the lives of our Orange County neighbors.”

Participating companies included Allergan, Bank of America, BJ’s Restaurants, Corinthian Colleges, Cox Communications, Disneyland Resort, Edwards Lifesciences, Experian, Fluor, JP Morgan Chase, Kaiser, Pacific Life, PIMCO, Ricoh Electronics, HUB International and Western Digital.

The Civic 50: Why IBM’s Integrated Commitments Makes it America’s Most Community-Minded Company

Today’s post is republished from CSR Wire, originally published on Feb. 12, 2013. In part one of a new series on CSRwire

Talkback

examining the seven dimensions, Jackie Norris, Executive Director of Points of Lights’ Corporate Institute decodes the first one: community partnerships.

Tania Zirn, a software engineer with

IBM

, had been volunteering at her local school in Chester, N.H. since her oldest son was in first grade. Recently, however, budget cuts left only one technology teacher to handle computer-related teaching, software managing and problem solving for all eight grades. She turned to IBM’s volunteer programs to see what resources she could provide. Along with Chester Academy’s technology teacher, she discovered that one of IBM’s three dozen Activity Kits – Mission: Innovation – fit perfectly into the seventh-grade curriculum. The activity kit transformed the course. “Tania’s work with the students energized both me and the students,” said teacher Susan Kessler. Zirn then upped her volunteer hours in order to quality for an IBM community grant. That enabled Chester Academy to buy $1,500 worth of video equipment. “It was very fulfilling and memorable to be able to help in a way specific to my 25-plus years of work experience,” she said.

IBM’s Integrated Commitment

IBM uses intense management involvement to combine such bottom-up employee-community relationships with top-down multimillion-dollar grants to contribute to neighborhood life at every level. This integrated commitment earned the globally integrated giant top honors in

community partnership

this year from

The Civic 50

, a ranking of America’s most community-minded companies. The Civic 50 is a partnership between the National Conference on Citizenship and Points of Light that ranks corporations on seven dimensions of local involvement. The

community partnership

dimension requires a company to pay close attention to local needs; to really

listen

and align what residents need with the company’s expertise, its employees’ abilities and the resources available. Employees have to be able to connect with each other and with corporate executives on what’s required, and on how best to contribute. IBM has been doing that since founder Thomas Watson, Sr. wrote in the 1920s: “Business leaders are not just ‘doing business.’ They’re knitting together the whole fabric of civilization.” In 2011, IBM’s 100

^th

anniversary year, more than 300,000 employees from the $100 billion corporation volunteered three million work hours in some 5,000-community service projects in 120 countries, impacting the lives of more than 10 million people

From Disaster Relief to Economic Development

That’s impressive, but more important is the way IBM citizenship projects vary in reach, size, duration and expense, from spur-of-the-moment disaster relief after Hurricane Sandy through long-term economic development to lowering high school dropout rates and promoting STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education.

On-Demand Community

– IBM’s employee volunteer portal – gives all 400,000 IBM employees access to valuable online tools and resources they can share anytime, anywhere with local schools and community agencies. IBM benefits in the process too: volunteer work keeps the skills of its expert workforce top-notch. For example, the company’s Corporate Service Corps sends teams of top-talent employees with various skills to an emerging market country for voluntary four-week assignments providing triple benefits for the organization and its cadets: leadership development for IBMers, training and development help for the communities, and a burnished reputation for IBM in its growth markets. These approaches of varying scope and cost demonstrate Points of Light’s vision that a corporation doesn’t have to be a multinational with the might of companies like IBM to do good for itself and its bottom line while doing good for its community. “We look for sustainable partners, expert groups leading on particular issues,” said Diane Melley, vice president of IBM Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs. “Then we focus on using IBM’s assets – technology or the skills of our expert workforce – for maximum impact. The win is three ways: to the employee, the community and the company.”

Smarter Cities: Helping 175,000 People Find Jobs

The City of Philadelphia won a 100-city $50 million grant under IBM’s Smarter Cities Challenge program, where IBM teams collaborate with local stakeholders to address an important urban problem – a low-skilled workforce. Working with city officials, employees and nonprofit organizations, the IBM team provided a roadmap for the planned Digital On-Ramps (DOR) Initiative, a mobile and land-based digital network to offer “anytime, anywhere” learning and workforce training for Philadelphians 14 and up, preparing them to connect to employment and post-secondary education. The four-year project target: help for 175,000 people in preparing themselves for modern jobs. That’s an achievement by volunteers that

The Civic 50

is proud to honor. “Volunteerism is embedded in every aspect of our business,” Melley said. “We’re bringing the leading edge of technology into these partnerships.” To learn more about optimizing your company’s community engagement programs, the National Conference on Citizenship and Points of Light invite you to attend

The Civic 50’s webinar

on February 21 at 2:00pm ET. Featured presenters include IBM and Citigroup, The Civic 50’s top ranked companies of 2012. The focus: IBM’s success in the “Community Partnerships” scoring dimension and Citigroup’s success with “Measurement and Strategy” in last year’s survey. To register, click here for the

civic 50 webinar

.

A Moment When Service Shined

Today’s blog is written by Courtney Murphy, Manager, Strategic Engagement for CECP. This is reposted from the CECP blog on Feb. 14, 2013.

February 13, 2013–Last week, I had the opportunity to tour the Hurricane Sandy relief and recovery projects in the Far Rockaways in Queens with Points of Light as part of their Corporate Service Council meeting. Being a New Yorker myself, I was eager to see first-hand the areas affected and to witness the tireless work of rebuilding.  Representatives from New York Cares, a Points of Light affiliate, guided us as we drove down Rockaway Boulevard, where less than half of the businesses have re-opened. In the first two months since Sandy made landfall, New York Cares volunteers have filled 14,000 slots on 924 disaster-related projects, where they “mucked out” (i.e., cleared out anything that sustained water damage) more than 300 water-damaged homes in an effort to get residents back in their homes.

It was crucial for New York Cares to organize the initial outpouring of volunteers so they wouldn’t get in the way of the city’s first responders. Even now, several months later, New York Cares serves as the primary source of relief operations in Brooklyn and Queens, with efforts expected to continue through the spring and into the summer. This organization runs busses of volunteers from lower Manhattan to their staging site every day. Projects progress from “muck out” to mold removal before the eventual rebuilding can begin.

In the Gerritsen Beach area in Brooklyn, we toured an affected house as it was being stripped of mold and met one of the

Donovan Brothers

, who own a local construction company and have been instrumental in the area’s rebuilding. This grassroots involvement of neighbors helping neighbors has been critical to recovery efforts since many of the affected locations were underserved and lacked a nonprofit infrastructure.

Corporations have also stepped up to serve. Points of Light engaged corporate partners, such as IBM and Verizon, to provide technical expertise and in-kind support valued at $50,000 and has connected many others with Sandy-related corporate volunteer opportunities.

Back at the Corporate Service Council meeting, local practitioners from JetBlue, Capital One, AT&T, and New York City Mayor’s Office participated in a candid panel discussion about the response and the role that government, the nonprofit sector, and corporations uniquely play in the immediate and long-term recovery process.
Throughout the two day conference held at JPMorgan Chase in New York City, corporate attendees shared best practices, accelerating the impact of their community programs. Chaired by Cliff Burrows, President of the U.S. and Americas at Starbucks, the Points of Light Corporate Institute’s Corporate Service Council is the premier national platform for advancing corporate volunteerism. An executive panel featuring Burrows and representatives from the NBA, Con Edison, and JPMorgan Chase underscored the value proposition of community engagement and payback for the bottom line.

The conference closed with an energizing call to “Be Fearless” from Michael Smith of the Case Foundation, demonstrating how innovation often arises from “Failing Forward,” being willing to take chances and think outside of organizational constraints. Campbell Soup’s “Just Peachy Salsa,” which is turning blemished peaches into at least $100,000 for the Food Bank of New Jersey, is just one example.

The Corporate Service Council meeting shined a light on the power of service in situations such as Hurricane Sandy – and the potential to work together for even greater positive impact. Participating in the CSC meeting was such an inspiration, especially as we at CECP prepare to share stories of corporate engagement on International Corporate Philanthropy Day Monday, February 25, 2013.

How Do We Plan A Global Volunteer Event?

Today’s post is written by Cynthia Tereasa Jones, Manager, Community Involvement at Mondelēz International, who will be hosting a free live webcast, in partnership with Points of Light, this Wednesday, February 13, 2013, 2:00-3:00pm EST. Register today!

When the company wanted to establish a global week of volunteer service, I was relatively new to the area.  Although I was familiar with coordinating volunteer events, such as one or two days of service in six states no doubt, I could only imagine the task ahead of us. Our charge was to develop a global week of volunteer service, recruit as many countries to participate as possible and do so with very little staff.

Wow, I was excited and petrified at the same time. However, I am an optimist. No matter how big the task, I always say, “we can do it, if we work together,” though there were only seven of us.

How did we plan a volunteer event of this magnitude in the same week around the world? We needed a plan, a strategy, tools and more to get the job done.  Well, needless to say, we did it. However, it didn’t take one or even seven. It took a network, key partnerships, creativity and of course, hard work to pull this off. Did I mention, we didn’t just create a global volunteer event, but a volunteer program to keep employees engaged in a changing environment throughout the year?

I invite you to join me to learn more and find out how we pulled it all together. What tools did we use? Who did we partner with? How did we survive? Whether it’s out of curiosity or to gain insights, we learn by exploring and sharing.

I am proud of what we’ve accomplished. There’s still so much more we all can do to help our local communities. Join me. Sign up for our webinar tomorrow and share your stories with us in comments.

An Argument Against Trying to Save the World

Today’s post is written by Graham McLaughlin, a Corporate Institute Leadership Faculty Member and the Director of Community Impact at The Advisory Board Company, a global research, consulting, and technology firm partnering with 125,000 leaders in 3,200 organizations across health care and higher education.

There are many good arguments for going global with your company’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program. For example, resources go further in developing nations, global CSR enables more favorable market expansion conditions and large-scale initiatives are a way to broaden impact while enhancing a company’s reputation as a thought leader.

This rationale is why even the smallest of companies consider taking their CSR program global, either through a singular project in the developing world or a large-scale, company-wide, initiative.

But does a global CSR strategy truly yield the most external social good and internal business benefit?  Or should a company also consider how to make a meaningful difference in its own backyard?

I believe that regardless of a company’s size or type, an effective CSR strategy is grounded in creating positive systemic changes at the local level.  A strategy that is focused on utilizing an employee’s key skills sets in order to enhance the work of effective local partners will yield the largest positive results for society and business.

Local is Inclusive, Cost Effective, and Longer-Lasting

Global projects are an amazing opportunity which yield a significant bump in engagement, retention and professional skill development for employees.  However, due to cost and logistical constraints participation is typically limited to only a fortunate few.  Local impact work enables any interested employee to participate (at minimal to no cost) and allows them to give back in a way that fits into their schedule. Therefore, local projects give the same benefit, but at a lower cost and potentially in a context that has greater staying power.

Local is Actionable and Meaningful

Massive, organization-wide projects take time, money and resources, can be difficult for an individual to understand how to participate, and have a lower chance of success.  Companies can create meaningful and impactful pro bono work by leveraging their employee’s expertise to solve problems. I’ve seen a local focus build a greater spirit of generosity and an ethos of compassion in employees because they are able to see, the impact of their work rather than read about it or see it through pictures and presentations.

Local is a Building Block

In my experience, both in developing our firm’s CSR program as well as reviewing the programs of others, big, headquarter-led, company-wide global initiatives typically have a high resource cost and limited success, while focused local initiatives empower employees.  The best individual ideas can spread organically throughout the company, building into global initiatives with local contextualization.

Developing a localized CSR framework puts every employee in a position to maximize their passion and skill set, ensuring a program that delivers the most social good in the most cost effective, business enhancing way.   For this reason, rather than immediately thinking big, I encourage you to think small, and to focus on your communities in order to save the world.

Great to Good: 7 Ways to Judge a Company

Today’s blog post is reprinted with permission from CSRWire, originally published Dec. 10.

By Gregory Papajohn and Lee Ann Zondag

How do you continually strive to achieve greatness? Where do you look for drivers, tools and benchmarking? How do you turn your achievements, resources and leverage into impact?

The Civic 50 now offers exactly that opportunity. In partnership with the National Conference on Citizenship (NCoC), Points of Light and Bloomberg LP, these 50 companies represent the best companies that improve the quality of life in the communities they do business through the application of time, talent and resources.  

The selection: The S&P 500 listed firms were surveyed for civic engagement programs against seven critical dimensions later analyzed by independent assessors. These dimensions included:

• Measurement and strategy:What are the program structure and metrics?
• Leadership: Is the C-suite involved?
• Design: Are corporate departments participating in program activities and direction?
• Community partnerships: Are companies acting as true partners to nonprofits and other companies?
• Employee civic growth: Is the program influencing personal growth and engagement of employees?
• Cause alignment: Do the core competencies and workforce skills of the business align with the supported causes?
• Transparency: Is the company communicating its work to the public and sharing best practices?

But the The Civic 50 is not just another list.

We see it as a declaration of great brands; companies that can inspire and motivate those not currently on the list to join the ranks.

Community, Community, Community

Following the release of The Civic 50 we had the chance to catch up with Jackie Norris, executive director of the Points of Light Institute and Ilir Zherka, executive director of NCoC, co-collaborators in the new endeavor.

Our first question for the duo was one of ground reality: Why should anyone pay attention to The Civic 50 over any of the other rankings and lists that recognize companies for their civic (using this term loosely) efforts?

The response was a resounding one: Community.

Norris and Zherka both explained that The Civic 50 breaks new ground by focusing on how companies engage in their communities. “Often the conversation stops at environmental sustainability or human rights. Here we present you with the opportunity to tell your story in the community,” stated Norris. “To share the heart of who you are – the full complement of what your people do outside of their families for neighbors, communities, their government,” added Zherka.

We also believe that The Civic 50 provides a new place to communicate – not where you comply and hold yourself accountable to others’ standards (such as can be the case with sustainability indices) – what you proactively decide to do on-the-ground, in your town, and on your teams.

The Name Game

We next asked about the thought process and choice of the words “civic” and “engagement” to describe The Civic 50. “Don’t overthink it,” they said. It was simple, really: they thought about what they woke up to do every day – engage people and passions to take action. And, voila!

The Big Three

Time, talent, and resources are the fundamental components of the survey – and comprise civic engagement – that truly capture the essence of the work The Civic 50 companies do in the space. Main findings:

• Time: Between the 430,000 employees of IBM [NYSE: IBM], which took the top spot in the inaugural list, 3.2 million hours were spent volunteering in 2011.
• Talent: More than two-thirds of the top 50 companies say they “frequently” or “always” use the professional skills of their workforce to address social issues and real community challenges.
• Resources: The top five companies provided $1.5 billion in grant support to community organizations, 17.5 million volunteer hours (valued at over $375 million) and $150 million in matching donations.

“[The contributions of time, talent and resources] demonstrates that the best companies in America are deeply committed to strengthening their respective communities,” Zherka concluded.

So whether we reference Morgan Stanley’s [NYSE: MS] (No. 6) Volunteer Month or Citigroup’s [NYSE: C] (No. 2) Global Community Day, organized volunteer programs show that top companies encourage employees to give back to their communities through the use of time. Talent-based programs like Aetna’s [NYSEF: AET] (No. 4) research on the role of ethnic diversity to deliver the highest quality of healthcare and FedEx’s [NYSE: FDX] (No. 12) work to improve communities’ disaster response and recovery programs exemplify how company knowledge and skillsets can be applied to better communities and professions.

Lastly, partnerships with community organizations and employee gift matching programs like those of GE [NYSE: GE] (No. 9), McGraw-Hill [NYSE: MHP] (No. 8) and Campbell Soup [NYSE: CPB] (No. 7) show that top companies – and employees – are making financial investments to strengthen their communities.

Planning for the Quarter…  Century

Shifting base for a second, Jim Collins challenged attendees at this year’s World Business Forum to plan for the quarter century (read: not quarter as in three months, but quarter as in 25 years). Collins was emphasizing what we believe is integral to the whole purpose of the GolinHarris CHANGE team. We look up and down the short- and long-term (positive) impacts you, an institution, can – and should – have.

Zherka demands a similar approach for The Civic 50 applicants. We must look beyond the fiscal quarter, he challenged, asking future applicants to “exist to change behavior.”

For sure, companies listed – and those who applied – for The Civic 50 are looking to change behavior and influence a long-term positive impact. The top companies have even reached a point where their civic programs and use of time, talent and resources in communities are not seen as separate CSR entities, but rather an integral part of the brand identity. IBM’s Smarter Cities Challenge is one such example, awarding 100 cities around the globe $50 million worth of IBM expertise to address topics from urban agriculture to public safety.

Campbell Soup, known for its soups and strong community work, prioritizes health and education where Campbell employees live and work by promoting access to nutritious meals and activity through the Nourishing Our Neighbors initiative. And General Electric, known for its innovative thinking, converts its belief that innovations can improve healthcare for more people into action by supporting community health centers around the globe.

It is endeavors like these that help everyone come to the same page and understand not only why companies must make investments and engage with their communities, but also the benefits these commitments have on communities, employees and companies. It’s interesting to note that a lot of the companies on The Civic 50 are household names and aspirational brands, often ranked on Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies and Best Companies to Work For lists.

Coincidence? We think not.  

Interested in knowing all of the companies that made the list? Meet “America’s most community-minded corporations” here.

Editor’s Note: As Lee Ann and Gregory exemplify, The Civic 50 is the first comprehensive ranking of S&P 500 companies that best use their time, talent and resources to improve the quality of life in the communities where they do business. Beginning in January 2013, Jackie Norris, executive director of the Points of Light Corporate Institute, will launch a new blog series for CSRwire to go in depth into the seven dimensions and illustrate how these 50 companies are demonstrating best in class corporate citizenship practices. Stay tuned!