General Mills: From a “House of Brands” to a “Branded House”
By Vicki Wray, Author, Communicating Social Impact
Since 1954, The General Mills Foundation has fueled more than half a billion dollars in support to nonprofit organizations in global communities, with much of it through brand philanthropy and corporate contributions. Yet when it came to communications, until recently, the company had been acting as a “house of brands” rather than a “branded house”—with each brand delivering its own CSR messaging rather than a holistic approach to the company’s social impact story.
That began to change when the senior leadership team developed and launched the company’s “Nourishing Lives” corporate mission statement. This team included the senior leader with oversight for the Foundation, who ensured the notion of social impact was a meaningful and actionable component of the mission. With that as a starting point, the Foundation created its social impact narrative by focusing on the “how”—how responsible practices guide the company’s work and help nourish lives, nourish communities, and nourish the planet. For further focus, the narrative revolved around five areas that would help them align to GRI standards: health, environment, sourcing, workplace, and community.
“In essence, the Foundation internalized the corporate mission for its social impact narrative by claiming its role as nourishing lives with remarkable philanthropy and volunteerism ranging from supporting core community institutions like United Way to supporting programs that enhance the income of farmers in less developed countries,” according to Ellen Luger, former executive director of the General Mills Foundation.
Luger notes that one of the most important things in successfully rolling out the communications platform was building trust with internal stakeholders, which she accomplished by being intentional in her communications with them. While, at first, the brands continued to communicate as they had in the past, over time, the “Nourishing Lives” came to life as the overarching narrative for all social impact communications. Luger also points out the value of senior management endorsement in driving adoption of the narrative through the company.
Luger’s advice to others developing an overarching social impact narrative is: “Do not try to be all things to all people. Know who you are as a company and who you are not. Know your key audiences, and focus on effectively communicating with them. Do not waste time arguing with the brand(s) about who owns communicating the mission, but embrace the fact that everyone owns a critical piece.”
“The Foundation was fortunate in having been given ‘Nourishing Lives’ as the starting point from which to build our umbrella platform and we are careful stewards of it. It’s not yet perfect. We are still on a journey to refine it and understand how to pull it through everything we are communicating,” she concludes.
About Communicating Social Impact
This case study is taken from Communicating Social Impact, the report of a 12-company research working group convened by The Conference Board that examined how leading organizations have effectively integrated promising communications practices into their corporate social responsibility and social impact work. Available free, the report is one of a range of publications on social impact measurement that The Conference Board has published in the past 12 months. The other publications, including Framing Social Impact Measurement, are available to members here.
About the author:
Vicki Wray
Author
Communicating Social Impact
Vicki Wray is a communications consultant, helping leaders at all levels of an organization engage employees and drive change in support of business goals. She brings over 20 years of employee communications experience to bear on such challenges as executive communications, strategic organizational communications, crisis communications, CSR communications, and large-scale change initiatives, including mergers, acquisitions, and restructurings, in addition to annual reports. You can contact Vicki at [email protected].
