Podcast Archive
Engaging the Business Sector in Social Change Efforts
In today’s world there is a clear role for businesses in the social change sector. This seminar sees John Weiser and Garry Loewen providing inspiring examples of businesses getting involved in social change and also practical information and guidance for nonprofits trying to effectively engage and collaborate with the business sector.
Take the Seminar!
In this podcast, John Weiser and Garry Loewen discuss how best to engage the business sector in community change efforts.
These two thought-leaders outline the role that businesses can play when addressing social issues; share inspiring stories of contributions that businesses have made to community change initiatives; and, provide practical ideas for how non-profits and other organizations can effectively engage the business sector.
Access Seminar Highlights:
- Business involvement in social change
- What Collaboration Means
- What Business Can Contribute
- Why Business Wants to Collaborate
- What Non-profits Can Contribute
- The Collaboration Challenge
- Meet Garry Loewen & John Weiser
Business involvement in social change efforts
John and Garry helped to make this subject feel real for us by sharing stories of social innovation and business involvement that is creating social change.
John used the example of payday lending projects in the US. Payday lending is the practice of lending against a person's next paycheque, often at high interest rates and with high fees.
John has been working with the National Credit Union Foundation to create alternatives to payday lending. NCUF recognizes that everyone who gets a payday loan has a job - what they need help with is managing their money. The National Credit Union Foundation is helping credit unions across the United States offer services that have proven successful for people of modest means and low wealth. The credit unions work with nonprofit organizations to provide the economic literacy or financial education programs.
Garry shared the story of a gathering he attended in May 2008 - focused on the role business could play on improving early childhood development outcomes in Manitoba.
The major impact of doing a collaboration with the business sector was demonstrated to Garry simply by looking around the table. Attracting CEO's of significant local corporations meant that the gathering also attracted senior political leaders, including the Premier of the province, and that in turn stimulated interest on the part of the major funding bodies in Winnipeg.
The group is in the process of developing a plan for how business can become engaged in early childhood development in Manitoba. The credibility and focus of the gathering and the ensuing actions are in large part thanks to business involvement and those corporate leaders who said this was an important conversation.
The Collaboration Continuum is a framework for thinking strategically about relationships between nonprofit organizations and businesses. Developed by James Austin and adapted by the Drucker Foundation from his book The Collaboration Challenge, it consists of three different levels: philanthropic, transactional, and integrative.
Philanthropic Relationship - A non-profit simply asks business to provide money or some tangible donation.
Transactional Relationship - Still a one-way relationship wherein business gives out of a charitable impulse, but the relationship goes beyond writing a cheque to having employees of the business become involved in an initiative or project. For example, many years ago CP Hotels developed a program where every hotel across the country adopted a shelter. They started by donating surplus linens and beds, but eventually the relationship deepened. They found that their cooks were teaching cooking classes, their maintenance staff were doing work at the shelter, etc.
Integrative Relationship - Both parties are involved in the planning of the initiative and are meeting certain goals. For example, State Farm in the US was having trouble providing house insurance in certain areas because risk was too high. And so they partnered with nonprofits to improve the insurability of homes in the area (e.g. lined up grants for security devices, lined up loans for properties to be fixed up) and to create a more vibrant community. That became part of a national effort that helped not only the people in the communities, but also created new insurance policies for the company.
Business can be helpful in several ways. They bring the following to a collaboration:
Resources - there’s money, obviously, but it can go beyond money – what’s useful to you? (e.g., jobs, physical location, infrastructure) For example, Coca-Cola partnered with UNAIDS to combat HIV and AIDS and brought not only money, but more importantly its distribution system in Africa, to the partnership.
Scale – if you can partner with a business in one place and it goes well, it can spread rapidly and create change in many places if it's a national corporation. For example, KaBOOM! and Home Depot have built 1000 playgrounds in 1000 days across the U.S.
Skills – Business can bring a wide range of skills to the table that are enormously valuable for nonprofits. For example the Annie E. Casey Foundation is working with a business that developed on a web platform for other businesses. AECF realized the platform would be helpful for nonprofits to use to deliver services.
Credibility - The dominant sector in Canada right now is the business sector. When they speak on an issue it automatically lends credibility to that issue. If a nonprofit can say that business is on board with them, they gain access to a number of different resources and people they might not otherwise be able to reach.
Why Business Wants to Collaborate
There are a range of drivers that prompt business collaboration with non-profits. The four drivers are:
- Market drivers – Business is interested in selling more product, hiring more people, accessing better ideas, and doing better business. For example, investing in improving early childhood development outcomes creates a stronger workforce in both the long and short term. (i.e. Improved outcomes for children benefit the child in the long-run, and benefit their parents today.)
- Value drivers – The company wants to live out their corporate values (e.g. Timberland & City Year). Partnering with nonprofits will satisfy a moral imperative to participate in the community.
- Compliance drivers – Regulatory issues can be important in certain industries (e.g. insurance, health care). Part of the reason mining companies are engaged in nonprofits and First Nations is because it's part of the regulatory structure.
- Intangible drivers – businesses seek to improve their brand, decrease risk, etc. The intangible drivers are hard to measure & know. For instance, business may believe they have expertise to offer to ensure better use of public resources.
What non-profits Can Contribute
Business could make a difference on their own, but non-profits bring valuable benefits to a collaboration, including:
- Access to Under-developed or Under-served Communities - Non-profits can bring the voice of the community to the table and help business build relationships with communities that they need to access, hire from or consult.
- Aggregate Demand - Non-profits can reach the community and aggregate demand for new services (e.g. credit union alternatives to payday lending companies)
- Conduit for Additional Funding - Non-profits can act as a conduit for charitable or public funding to offset the high cost of providing otherwise unaffordable new services to vulnerable populations. (e.g. financial education programs)
There are challenges that arise when collaborating with business. Garry and John identified some of these and provided some tips on how to overcome them.
- Culture Clash & Language: From how we make decisions (consensus building and process-laden vs. hierarchical and timely), to the actual language we use, nonprofits and business can sometimes experience a culture clash when they begin to work together.
John used the example of a meeting between bank executives and a nonprofit that were working together on a new initiative. When the bank executives announced they wanted a "resident-driven initiative", the nonprofit staff were ecstatic. But the bank employees meant they wanted to have focus groups and surveys. "Resident-driven" meant very different things to these two groups.
John suggests having a trusted person who can span both sides, perhaps a staff person or board member who has served in the industry. They can act as a bridge, talking to both sides and decoding the language for each party.
- Internal Resistance: Businesses can be like government in that they are themselves often like coalitions with lots of different departments each with different desires and goals. As a result, non-profit partner needs can get lost in the mix.
This can be overcome by having internal champions in these departments who understand what you are trying to accomplish, will promote your interests and can tell your success stories. That way you can be someone who helps to build coalitions inside the business.
- Working at win-win solutions: The activist sector often worries about compromising their values to work with business. This is especially true if there has been a lot of public confrontation over the years. Sometimes there is a desire to simultaneously work with business and to continue that confrontation . While trying to collaborate, it's necessary to choose to work at win-win solutions so that business can win and the issue you care about can advance at the same time. This is a long-term process.
- Relationship management: As with any collaboration, particularly at the high-end of the collaboration continuum (i.e. transactional or integrative relationships), you must be prepared to maintain the relationship and give it the time it needs, at both a structural and interpersonal level.
GOING DEEPER
Collaborating with Business - This Tamarack guide, written by Garry Loewen, identifies how collaborating with business can enhance social change outcomes, provides tips on meeting the challenges that such collaboration creates, and supplies practical tools for planning the engagement with the business sector.
Part of the Solution - This report, Part of the Solution: Leveraging Business and Markets for Low-Income People, is authored by John Weiser and shares lessons learned from the Ford Foundation's Corporate Involvement Initiative. From 1995 to 2003, the Initiative sought to demonstrate how business and communities could collaborate to generate “win-win” outcomes – creating competitive advantage for business and gains in income, assets and wealth for low-income people through private sector investment in communities.
Hidden Agendas - This paper identifies and illuminates the often invisible and unspoken barriers impeding the effectiveness and efficiency of cross-sector partnerships.
Conversations with Disbelievers - This guide, co-authored by John Weiser and Simon Zadek, provides quantitative evidence that addressing social challenges can help businesses improve their financial bottom lines. The guide provides practical advice on how best to use available evidence in encouraging businesses to address social objectives.
Win-Win Partners – This website, an offshoot of the Ford Foundation's Corporate Involvement Initiative, promotes strategies for corporations to improve their business performance and improve the lives of low income groups and communities.
The Center for Corporate Citizenship – This website explores the rationale and mechanics of corporate involvement in community issues.
Engaging Business to Reduce Poverty - This seminar series from Vibrant Communities was designed to help local networks learn how they can engage businesses – from small to large – to assist a large number of low income residents in their journey out of poverty. The series includes seminar audio files.
Case Studies & Examples
REAL Solutions - This program from the National Credit Union Foundation helps credit unions offer services that have proven successful for people of modest means and "low wealth." Learn more by visiting the program website.
KaBOOM! & Home Depot - KaBOOM! is a national non-profit organization that envisions a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America. Their partnership with the Home Depot plays to each organization's collective strengths and marshals the full scope of each partner’s resources, creating great places for millions of children in low-income neighborhoods to leap, swing and play. Learn more here.
Coca Cola to Help Fight AIDS - This 2001 article from CNN.com provides details on the three-year partnership between Coca-Cola and UNAIDS. The company put its massive distribution and marketing system to use in the fight against the epidemic in Africa. Learn more here.
AIDS is Everybody’s Business - This paper provides a collection of case studies from UNAIDS partnerships with the private sector. Download the paper here.
Timberland & City Year - Timberland's longstanding commitment to community took on greater intensity in 1989 with a donation of 50 pairs of boots to City Year, a fledging youth service corps in Boston. Inspired by the diverse young leader's passion and idealism, the partnership between Timberland and City Year – a model for the national youth service program, Americorps – has expanded to 13 regions across the country and a pilot program in South Africa. Read their story here.
Meet Garry Loewen & John Weiser
Garry Loewen - Garry Loewen has worked as a business person, a parish minister, an economic development director, and a community activist. His early career was with Air Canada where he worked as General Manager of Air Canada's operations at Toronto International Airport. He served as a parish minister for five years. Garry is currently self-employed as a community and economic development consultant and is a coach in the Vibrant Communities Canada network.
John Weiser - John Weiser is a partner and co-founder at Brody, Weiser and Burns. He specializes in helping organizations use business strategies to achieve social goals. You might know John from the papers he’s written on the business case for corporate involvement. In 2000, John and Simon Zadek co-authored “Conversations with Disbelievers”. He was also the lead author of the Ford Foundation’s groundbreaking report, "Part of the Solution: Leveraging Business and Markets for Low-Income People." John graduated magna cum laude in mathematics from Harvard University. He holds a Masters Degree in Public and Private Management from the Yale School of Organization and Management.
©2011 Tamarack — An Institute for Community Engagement