Strategic Corporate Philanthropy

By Jamie Hartman on May 9, 2008 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is an inspiring message from Bill Gates - it is in perfect alignment with the goals of the Pro Bono Action Tank.

'Strategic Corporate Philanthropy'
By BILL GATES
FROM TODAY'S WALL STREET JOURNAL ASIA
May 8, 2008

How important is access to information technology? A World Bank report released earlier this year found a very high correlation between the rate of technology progress and income growth. It said: "Technological progress [distinguishes] fast-growing developing economies and slow growing ones. It also distinguishes economies that have made great strides in reducing poverty and those that have been less successful."

At Microsoft, we share the belief that information technology can have a dramatic positive effect on people's lives. We also believe that one of the best ways to accelerate the speed of technology adoption is through close partnerships between the public sector and the private sector.

Public-private partnerships make it possible to multiply the impact that a single organization or company could hope to achieve working alone. They combine public sector organizations' knowledge of local communities with private companies' technical expertise and implementation experience. As a result, these partnerships can develop and deploy effective information technology solutions that solve specific challenges with much greater speed.

The notion that businesses have a responsibility to promote the public good by supporting the work of nonprofit and governmental organizations is not new, of course. The late 1940s and early 1950s saw companies such as Ford, Western Electric and Philip Morris form foundations to manage corporate giving.

But much of this activity centered exclusively on financial support. Today, the value of corporate involvement lies as much in expertise as it does in monetary support. This shift is due in part to efforts by a number of United Nations agencies in the late 1990s to look for new ways to work with corporations to help address major global health issues.

The rise of this so-called "strategic corporate philanthropy" is an important step forward. When a company like Microsoft is in a position to provide not just money, but also the expertise and experience to help an organization use technology to achieve its goals more quickly and more effectively, it can speed the pace and scale of progress.

Take the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's program to create a set of global technology competency standards for teachers. The goal is to ensure that teachers have the training and materials to provide students with the technology skills they will need to participate in the global knowledge economy. Three major corporations -- Microsoft, Intel and Cisco -- helped shape the program, thanks to a shared belief that a technically literate workforce is an essential ingredient for sustainable economic growth.

Across Asia, public-private partnerships are playing an important role in creating new economic opportunities. In South Korea, the Ministry of Information and Communication has worked in close partnership with the private sector for nearly 15 years to build a national technology industry. Today, South Korea is a global leader in information and communications technologies.

The ultimate goal is to support the development of local economies that have the infrastructure and skilled work force needed to create sustainable growth. My hope is that this will help increase the number of people who have the tools and knowledge to participate in the digital revolution from one billion to two billion and beyond. As this happens and more people join the global knowledge economy, they will spur further innovations that address difficult issues faced by so many people around the world.

This, more than anything, will be the key to creating a world where everyone can expect to lead long, healthy, productive and fulfilling lives.

Mr. Gates is chairman of Microsoft Corporation.

Pro Bono Outfitter

By Aaron Hurst on April 30, 2008 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Looking for the right threads to show off your commitment to pro bono?  This week we are beta testing the Pro Bono Outfitter, your destination for cool pro bono Taproot Foundation gear.

We are starting off with our classic Golden Turnip Jogger and popular vintage Golden Turnip ties. Check out the store and get your orders in early!

Pro Bono Outfitter.

Breakthrough Research on Pro Bono Business Case

By Aaron Hurst on April 30, 2008 1:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Monday, Deloitte released their study on the potential of Pro Bono as a corporate professional development tool.  The phone survey was of Fortune 500 HR managers and was conducted by a third party using a robust sample.  The results are really impressive and should help us convince companies of the value of pro bono.

The headlines:

• 91% of Fortune 500 HR managers agree that skills-based volunteering would add value to training and development programs, particularly as it relates to fostering business and leadership skills.  
• Nearly 70% of their training and development budgets are projected to remain flat or go down in the next year AND all but 2% see pro bono as a lower cost solution.

Click here for the full report. This is powerful data in making the case for the potential of corporate pro bono programs.

Pro bono makes you happy

By Aaron Hurst on April 29, 2008 3:42 PM | Permalink

We always wondered why all our volunteers have goofy smiles on their faces all the time.  Now we know. 

A recent study shows that people who do pro bono actually are happier! Lawyers are more satisfied when they fulfill the ABA's aspirational goal of 50 hours of pro bono work a year. While only about 46% of lawyers actually meet the goal, those who do report a direct correlation between pro bono work and their own satisfaction. According to the abstract of Levit and Linder's forthcoming article "Happy Law Students, Happy Lawyers" in the Syracuse Law Review, "people who have a richer sense of happiness aren't those who work on their narcissistic personal needs, but those who embrace a larger sense of civic engagement."

This is consistent with research done in the last few years that shows that 'giving' increases happiness and lifespan of Americans.  It also explains why I always think I have the best job in the world.  I get paid to peddle happiness - and this time around it is legal.

A Gem: Chicago's Civic Consulting Alliance

By Aaron Hurst on April 24, 2008 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The more I understand pro bono services and their potential for social impact, the more I fall in love with Chicago's Civic Consulting Alliance.  They have created a really powerful model in Chicago that needs to be replicated in every city as well as at the state and federal level.

The Civic Consulting Alliance is a partnership between the City of Chicago and CEOs of the top companies in the city.  Every year they identify key issues facing the city and then engage the companies in pro bono projects to address the issue.  Rather than having pro bono be about a million acts of kindness, Civic Consulting Alliance has harnessed pro bono to make tangible and important changes in the city.

Here are some examples of pro bono projects facilitated by CCA from their site:

- CCA helped the Department identify key goals that indicate environmental progress, and developed an environmental scorecard for the City based on these. The priorities outlined in the scorecard were used to realign DOE projects and priorities, and then were used to align the environmental efforts of all City Departments.

- Each year, about 3 million tons of waste are generated in Chicago and sent to area landfills. In collaboration with the Department of Environment and Mayor's office, CCA and its partners are developing a strategy for reducing and recycling waste from each of the core materials in the Chicago's waste stream. These recommendations are now the center of the City's waste reduction initiative.

- Five-hundred-thousand riders a day depend on the Chicago L, yet years of deferred maintenance now require billions in repairs. Faced with such a large, yet required, investment, CTA asked, "If you could build any rapid transit system in the world, what would it be?" Along with its partners, CCA identified the requirements, characteristics, and costs of "the rail of the future." This research led to numerous planning efforts to reflect the result in current projects.

- Working with line and management personnel, CCA and McKinsey and Company is applying lean transformation techniques to help improve the effectiveness and efficiency of bus maintenance across all of CTA.

You can read about their projects with the City of Chicago at: http://www.ccachicago.org/our-work/index.html

Greening our Operations

By Aaron Hurst on April 14, 2008 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While our environmental impact is not part of our mission, as responsible professionals we do need to look at the impact of our operations on the environment.  Here are a few of the things we do that help to decrease our footprint:

• Our volunteers each donate an estimated 100 hours per project.  Of these 100 hours of work, 90% are virtual, requiring no travel.
• Many of our Roots (staff) work from home one day per week, decreasing the amount of gas they consume as commuters.  We also encourage folks to bike to work.
• We use online applications for volunteers and nonprofits and in so doing reduce paper use and minimize shipping (mail).
• Our primary marketing tool is our web site, rather than paper-based materials.

In the next few years, we want to further reduce our use of natural resources by pursuing these strategies:

• We currently use way too much paper in our volunteer projects, starting with our 80 page manuals that volunteers and nonprofits use to guide projects.  We are moving to make all of these virtual.
• We require nonprofits to come and interview with us in person.  We want to determine how to make these meetings virtual.
• We continue to produce brochures and annual reports for nonprofits (and for ourselves).  As we become more of a "paperless" society, we will convert these projects into online versions that will not require paper and shipping.
  

Do you have other ideas for ways that the Taproot Foundation can develop more responsible environmental policies?

Podcast with University of Michigan

By Jamie Hartman on April 11, 2008 11:03 AM | Permalink

Check out Aaron's interview with his alma mater, the University of Michigan.

Professionalizing Pro Bono Consulting

By Aaron Hurst on March 31, 2008 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Like early corporate philanthropy, pro bono services offered by the leading consulting firms often appear to be more opportunistic than strategic.  They are driven by requests and partner interests.  As a result, it is hard to evaluate their collective impact or to tell a compelling story about the pro bono work being done across the country.

In the last 10 years, corporate philanthropy programs have professionalized their efforts to be more focused on intentional impact.  They have identified key issues that are aligned with their interests and have started making larger grants that look to connect them deeply with the issue and to position the company as a leader. 

These companies have further professionalized these efforts by becoming active members of broader foundation coalitions.   If they are strategically investing in education, they are partnering with other foundations across the country making similar investments to increase the effectiveness of their efforts (and those of their peers). 

As consulting firms increase their investment in pro bono in the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars it is time for us to follow the lead of strategic corporate philanthropy.  To increase impact, these firms should be at the foundation tables that are building collective strategies for approaching core issues like education and the environment. This would not only help to focus the pro bono investments of professional services firms, but could perhaps more importantly bring a fresh perspective to these groups of grantmakers. 

How do we get associations like the ones below to invite firms to the table to talk about pro bono as a form of grantmaking?

- Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (http://www.geofunders.org/home.aspx)

- Council on Foundations (http://www.cof.org/)

- Grantmakers for Education (http://www.edfunders.org/)

- Grantmakers for Children, Youth and Families (http://www.gcyf.org/)

- Grantmakers in Aging (http://www.giaging.org/)

- Environmental Grantmakers Association (http://www.ega.org/)

On the Frontlines: MBAs Gone Wild

By James W. Shepard on March 20, 2008 1:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pro bono strategic services can make a huge contribution to the nonprofit sector. But realizing this potential, and engaging even a small portion of business professionals in pro bono strategic planning assignments, will take real dedication by players in both the nonprofit and for-profit sectors.

To learn more about this, check out MBAs Gone Wild in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Pro Bono Middle Ground

By Aaron Hurst on March 18, 2008 2:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What is the ideal volunteer opportunity for those that don't have the skills to do most traditional pro bono work (marketing, IT, HR, legal, etc.) but work at companies and don't want to do hands on volunteering?  These are the majority of employees at companies (90%+).  These are the front line of most businesses (store clerks, bank tellers, etc.).

This has been a hot topic of discussion with many of our in-house corporate partners.  They love the idea of pro bono, but they are measured based on the percentage of employees engaged and pro bono as it is defined now engages only a thin sliver of their population.

I would love to be able to find a way to leverage this bulk of corporate America but don't see an obvious solution.  It may evolve over time as the traditional pro bono work occurs and HQ employees innovate when they see opportunities.  This is the most likely scenario.

Does anyone have an insight into how to think about this opportunity? What could a nonprofit do to leverage the skills of front line corporate employees?  What are their transferable skills?