The Conference Board is delighted to be teaming up with Americans for the Arts to launch the 2017 edition of Business Contributions to the Arts, a benchmark report that looks at how and why companies support the arts in their communities. In support of the report’s release, we will be hosting a webcast on Monday, June 26, to go over the findings.
We have become all-too familiar with the heartbreaking images of flimsy, inflatable rafts attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea, of young children and their parents peering through barbed wire into a new country, and of refugee camps where the tents stretch on for miles and miles. And then there are the pictures that you will never unsee, like tiny Alan Kurdi’s body lifeless on a beach.
In April of 2016, I decided to interview as many corporate social responsibility (CSR) professionals as I could get in front of. Over 12 months later, I have amassed over 150 interviews chronicling a variety of enterprises that have really shaped my perspective about the space. These interviews span numerous business types—public and private, B2B and B2C, US-Based and international, emerging and established, commodity and niche, and even growing and declining businesses. The good news is this: most of these companies have, to some degree, embraced corporate social responsibility as a business function. The bad news—whether CSR leaders want to admit it or not—is that there are fundamental holes in how CSR, as a business function, is managed. In this piece, I’ve outlined some of these challenges and what CSR practitioners can begin to do to move forward.
Our series of working papers from NUS Business School in Singapore explores the role of philanthropy in supporting entrepreneurial social ventures in Asia. We previously reported on the social finance ecosystem, innovative models of philanthropy including giving circles, and how angel investing for impact can benefit social enterprise. In the fifth report, my co-authors, Audrey Chia and Ken Ito, and I examine the role of corporate business as the provider of philanthropic capital—financial, human and intellectual.
False and deliberately misleading stories in the media threaten freedom and democracy by distorting our understanding of vital issues. Our institutions can help combat false information by encouraging and supporting volunteer service. Volunteers see first-hand the true challenges facing society and engage in seeking solutions that work. Volunteers who bear witness can tell the story and take action. Companies, foundations, schools, associations, and religious groups can play a powerful role in advancing freedom and democracy by promoting service.
Source: Glamour
Tara Abrahams leads The Girl Project at Glamour Magazine to help companies connect with their customers and create a philanthropic legacy by investing in girls’ education. In this Q&A, Abrahams describes how The Girl Project transforms the lives of girls and advances economic development.
It is interesting to note that as companies move to more closely align their employee volunteer programs with their corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy, employees are seeking more fulfillment and purpose in their lives, which sometimes take them in a different direction from their employer. CSR and employee volunteering are not mutually exclusive and both are gaining traction for different reasons.
By Tim McClimon
In January of this year, the Business & Sustainable Development Commission, a group of 35 leaders from business, finance, civil society, labor and international organizations, issued a report titled Better Business, Better World under the auspices of the UN Foundation. Its goal was to map the economic benefits available to business if the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are achieved and to describe how business can contribute to delivering these goals.
By Tim Hanstad
In the developed world, few rights are as inviolable as the rights to land—for housing, cultivation, commerce, and more. So, it often comes as a surprise that land rights are not legally documented or secure in much of the rest of the world—the World Bank estimates that only 30 percent of land worldwide is legally documented. This has significant consequences for at least 1 billion people who live in rural areas, where land is the most valuable asset and source of wealth, status, and security. The lack of secure rights to land traps millions of rural women and men in a cycle of poverty.
By Alice Korngold and Lisa Green Hall
Lisa Green Hall co-manages and led the launch of a global initiative known as Skopos Impact Fund, focused on delivering social, environmental and financial returns. As the former CEO of Calvert Foundation, a global leader in impact investing, and a board member of the Nonprofit Finance Fund, Lisa Green Hall has a rich perspective on what works. In this Q&A, Lisa Green Hall shares how impact investing is an opportunity to expand economic prosperity globally and leverage the influence of women and people of color in business and finance.
The Giving Thoughts Series is an online publication in which corporate philanthropy experts delve into the most pressing issues affecting our members.
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