Measuring the social impact of corporate-nonprofit collaboration
By Richa Agarwal
VeraWorks' Bea Boccalandro
Dialogue on how to measure the social impact through a collaborative
relationship between corporations and nonprofits is one of the setting stones
for value creation and risk management for socially conscious businesses.
VeraWorks founder Bea Boccalandro relayed a conversation with Gwen
Migita, global head of social impact at Caesars Entertainment (who could
not be at the event), on how to determine whether corporate money spent with
nonprofits for social programs results in positive changes in the long term. The
conversation was sparked by Caesars’ investment in an initiative called
Teachers Exchange, wherein all the
underutilized stationery and other classroom supplies are donated to needy
students; Caesars has spent over $2 million on this initiative in the last 11
years.
Boccalandro couldn’t emphasis enough the need for data assessment for nonprofit
organizations. On evaluation, VeraWorks found that Teachers Exchange had a
constructive impact on students. But she believes that for-profit companies
should not just give away money to social programs, but should direct resources
to capturing impact through data assessment: Studies show that only 20 percent
of social programs measure their impact; and of that number, only half are
making a difference.
Further, Boccalandro focused on the need for corporates to go beyond just
spending money in CSR, towards creating metrics to quantify the impacts that the
nonprofit has been able to have. She emphasized that lack of data may inhibit
understanding of unseen consequences of investment in a mismatched social
venture, and how it could end up worsening a problem instead of solving it.
How Microsoft is measuring local community prosperity to inform stakeholder engagement and investment
By Leila Goldmark
L-R: Dimitar Vlahov and Jim Hanna
In this keynote and onstage conversation with SB’s Dimitar Vlahov, Jim
Hanna — Director of Datacenter Community Development at Microsoft —
provided an overview of the tech giant’s new set of social metrics, designed to
better understand local communities in places where it has data centers. These
metrics help generate Community Prosperity Scores that can be benchmarked and
tracked, helping to inform stakeholder-engagement initiatives and guide
community investments that best meet the needs of each community.
The Problem: Lots of activity, no impact measurement
Microsoft’s network of data centers generate local environmental and social
impacts (e.g. land, water, air, energy, employment, etc). As a responsible
community member, Microsoft wanted to give back to communities where it operated
through a number of sustainability initiatives (e.g. providing broadband,
environmental conservation, rural community economic development, etc). As with
many sustainability initiatives — and, as Bea Boccalandro and Caesars discussed,
above — Microsoft’s initial community-development programs generated a lot of
activity, but they had no idea if that activity was actually achieving the
desired impact. How could they tell what was working?
The Solution: New metrics
Microsoft worked for several years to identify Critical Community Prosperity
Metrics (CCPM) to produce Community Prosperity Scores and better assess
the performance of its community development projects. Identified metrics
include:
· Access to healthcare
· Housing affordability
· Access to leisure, recreation, cultural activities
· Access to affordable childcare
· Air quality
· Employment rates
· Locally owned businesses
· STEAM education
· Income inequality
· Access to affordable broadband
· Access to transportation / commute times
· Active community organizations
· Integration of immigrant / excluded groups
The results, so far
Hanna explained that Microsoft’s CCPMs are a work in progress, and that they are
intended to be transparent and publicly available for all to use:
“I’m not here to showcase a finished product. We need transparency and to share
the bumps and bruises among our peers. We need to learn, to join forces, if we
are to improve.”
Microsoft does not claim expertise in social issues, but there are many expert
organizations that focus on measuring community prosperity. Thus, Microsoft is
trying to rely on publicly available data for inputs to its data engine,
whenever possible.
Microsoft continues to reach out for feedback, holding several local community
stakeholder-engagement meetings each year, and seeking to partner with local
stakeholders — individuals, elected officials, local NGOs and employees. It is
using its data to embed sustainability throughout business units, where
traditional business metrics and budgets will move projects forward.
AT&T: Exploring new frontiers in quantifying the benefits of employee engagement
By Richa Agarwal
AT&T's Jason Leiker
Next up, Jason Leiker — Associate VP of CSR at
AT&T — asserted that initiating new
ways to quantify the benefits of employee engagement turned out to be a
game-changer for AT&T. He talked about the complexity of the issues, how the
company and society need to go hand-in-hand; and lastly, how employees can add
value to the company as part of the community.
Leiker explained the approach undertaken by AT&T to get buy-in from employees to
participate in community-engagement programs — through giving and digital
volunteer participation — and how that approach has resulted in an 11 percent
increase in employee eNAP ratings.
The company changed its metrics, from measuring community programs by external
impacts to quantifying employee participation and satisfaction. Engagement
opportunities that had required workplace flexibility, preparation and
commitment are now being leveraged through a wide variety of engagement
opportunities for employees are that are fun, easy and allow for broader
participation. Changing the top-down approach to competitive fundraisers —
focused on dollars raised — has created an opportunity for peer-to-peer
fundraisers focused on overall positive experience; and growing programs with a
shrinking budget were converted to programs with shared and growing budgets; all
resulted in increased employee participation.
Regarding reaching employees, the company has three stages of involvement —
first, 99 percent of employees are aware of the programs; second, roughly 58
percent are engaged; and third, 32 percent of employees have become community
champions.
Leiker also shared how the approach was seeing a direct impact on employee
reviews: Of employees that were surveyed, the company saw 4 percent more
interest in retention rate, and 4 percent more employees were willing to be
engaged with these programs. Leiker strongly believes that the benefits of
employee engagement have the potential to transform businesses.
Inspiring and tracking consumer behavior change: Unleashing the power of #BrandsForGood
By Richa Agarwal
Brands for Good is a collaborative initiative —
undertaken by Sustainable Brands and a handful of its Corporate Members and
external partners — to change consumer behavior for the more sustainable, and
create metrics that quantify the impacts. The initiative, formally launched in
June 2019,
aimed to bring companies together, to pool resources to co-create and co-design
success metrics for sustainable marketing and resultant changes in consumer
behavior. The participating brands and organizations have taken a three-point
pledge:
-
to embed environmental and social purpose in the heart of their products;
-
to use their marketing, communications and brand influence to make
sustainable living accessible, aspirational and rewarding; and
-
to work together to transform the field of marketing to shift behaviors and
close the intention-action gap with respect to sustainable
purchasing/lifestyle behaviors.
Brands for Good VP Etienne White elaborated on the need for understanding
what drives consumers to buy and the need for facilitating sustainable buying
habits. She asserted that marketing needs a redesign; and how there are many
metrics out there, but none capture consumer behaviors for companies. White
referenced a Brands for Good
report
that found a case to create a “pull factor” for customers for sustainability,
instead of pushing it on them, and that leveraging evidence-based research and
brand creativity can close the intention-action gap.
Brands for Good has identified nine sustainable
behaviors as the
basis for an Innovation Framework in four core areas: lifestyle, marketing
and advertising, media and socio-economic. Using these, Brands for
Good is now creating a Lifestyle Transformation Roadmap, which will include
a self-assessment component to inspire and empower consumers and employees;
socio-economic trend-trackers that track measures on the baseline population
defined by brand and industry segments; marketing and advertising effectiveness
and evaluation metrics for work that successfully engages consumers; and a Media
Engagement Strategy that showcases and amplifies Brands for Good
stakeholders. Watch this space!
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Leila Goldmark is a sustainable business entrepreneur; founder & President of Green Rainbow Revolution (GRR) — an e-commerce retail business that specializes in sourcing modern, eco-friendly, ethically produced arts and school supplies, educational toys, and lifestyle goods for kids of all ages.
Richa Agarwal is pursing graduate studies in environmental sustainability at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to Penn, Richa worked with an environmental think tank in India, on topics of waste management and circular economy for India and Tanzania. She is interested in topics of global supply chain for post consumer used goods, finding partnerships between private organizations and NGOs/think tanks, and going zero waste.
Published Nov 20, 2019 1pm EST / 10am PST / 6pm GMT / 7pm CET