Companies For Good

Oklahoma Tornadoes: How to Help

Companies4Good — Wed, 22 May 2013 07:00:00 GMT

By Allison McGuire | @Calimcg & Kate Olsen | @Kate4Good

We're closely monitoring the severe storms and tornadoes in Oklahoma and surrounding states. Companies have asked us how they can support relief efforts. Here are our recommendations:

Donate to one of the charities aiding Midwest disaster relief efforts. These include:

The American Red Cross Central and Western Oklahoma Region Chapters within the region dispatched team members, opened three shelters, provided Mass Care, conducted bulk distribution and staffed local and state Emergency Operation Centers.
Feeding America will deliver truckloads of food, water and supplies to impacted areas through its network of more than 200 food banks and 61,000 agencies. The organization's food banks will also set up additional dropoff sites.
The Salvation Army of Arkansas and Oklahoma is becoming active in disaster response to several areas as a result of weather related events. The Salvation Army is providing mobile feeding units for first responders and survivors.

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What Drives Digital Support for Causes

Companies4Good — Mon, 20 May 2013 07:00:00 GMT

By Katya Andresen | @KatyaN4G

The following is a guest post from Network for Good's CSO & COO. A similar version originally appeared on her blog, Katya's Non-Profit Marketing Blog.

Social media for social good is growing. Georgetown University’s Center for Social Impact Communication and Waggener Edstrom Worldwide just released a new study that delves into the perceptions, behavior and motivations for cause support (locally and globally) among digitally engaged American adults.

Here are some of the most interesting findings:

Passion and pride drive people to post on causes: People who talk about causes online mostly (76%) do so to recruit others to their passion. Looking like a nice or smart person were distant seconds to the desire to influence others in general, but when it came to Facebook users (see bottom of this post), the desire to publicly display support of a cause came in first.

Conversations about causes are occurring primarily online, whether people choose to support the cause online or off. Social media is a go-to source of cause information, especially for global and faith-based causes. More than 8 in 10 respondents agreed that social media is effective in getting people talking about causes and issues. Animals and children topped the list of popular causes on social media (of course - puppies and babies win every time!).

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New Belgium Brews Millennial Happiness: #FF Feature

Companies4Good — Fri, 17 May 2013 07:00:00 GMT

By Allison McGuire | @Calimcg

It’s not surprising that Millennials like beer. Everyone likes beer. Okay, maybe not everyone, but many, many people enjoy a cold brew. Through their core business values, profit model, and internal organization, one company is drawing Millennials left and right: New Belgium Brewery.

Through a series of “happy accidents” Katie Wallace found herself at New Belgium. The employee-owned business embodies happiness itself. I had a chance to chat with Wallace about her work, and why the company operates the way it does. All quotations are from Ms. Wallace.

Started in co-founder Kim Jordan’s basement, the Brewery has always been a values-driven company. Not surprisingly, that attracts a certain type of employee: Explains Wallace, “We have a director of fun.”

Being human. Jordan’s background in social work and marketing has brought a human touch to a business that is all about people. For starters, she insisted on New Belgium being employee-owned, with an open-book management policy.

“Honoring our humanness – we’re not machines – unlocks this amazing power in the business, making us more profitable and successful in the long run.”

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‘Good’ Consumption Grows

Companies4Good — Thu, 16 May 2013 07:00:00 GMT

By Allison McGuire | @Calimcg

You can read our COO/CSO Katya Andresen’s take on this data here.

Here’s a headline I like reading: Consumers Care about Buying from Socially Responsible Brands Now More Than Ever. It’s some good news from my favorite print magazine, Fast Company.

Good.Must.Grow., a socially responsible marketing company, recently conducted a poll of 1,015 Americans around conscious consumerism, and the results are encouraging. In 2011, 18% reported buying from socially responsible companies. In 2012, that number jumped to 30% saying they plan to purchase more goods from these companies.

What’s perhaps most interesting is that while 31% said they sought out socially responsible companies, 25% said they “avoided buying products from a company specifically because it wasn’t socially responsible”.

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New eGuide: The Brainiac's Guide to Cause Marketing

Companies4Good — Wed, 15 May 2013 07:00:00 GMT

By Kate Olsen | @Kate4Good

Research shows that, above all, emotion is what galvanizes people to act.

People support causes because they feel something, not because they think something. In fact, if you make people stop and think, they tend to do less good. So what does research about emotion and giving mean to the cause marketer?

Today, we release a brand new eGuide - The Brainiac's Guide to Cause Marketing by our own COO and CSO Katya Andresen - that explores how people’s minds really work, and what that means for your next campaign. By understanding how people think, you'll learn how to make them act.

Keep reading for a taste of what you'll get...

From Investment Banking to Mushroom Farming?

Companies4Good — Tue, 14 May 2013 07:00:00 GMT

By Allison McGuire | @Calimcg

Soon-to-be college graduates Nikhil Arora and Alejandro Velez learned how gourmet mushrooms could be grown out of recycled coffee grounds. The idea – intriguing if nothing else – made them think: Should they forgo stable careers in the banking world for innovative entrepreneurship in the…mushroom world?

As you might have guessed, the answer is yes.

If you can believe it, initial interest from Whole Foods and Chez Panisse, along with a grant from their university, gave them the courage to create Back to the Roots—turning Arora and Velez into “full time urban mushroom farmers”.

Their mission is simple: To make food personal again through the passionate development of tools that educate and inspire, one family at a time.

As are their values: Hustle. Passion. Family. Universal Happiness.

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Communicating CSR Values: Sodexo

Companies4Good — Mon, 13 May 2013 07:00:00 GMT

By Allison McGuire | @Calimcg

This is a continuation of a Follow Friday Feature with Sodexo.

Sodexo is a massive global quality of life services company, reaching 75 million people on a daily basis. In spite of its size, Sodexo is committed to the local communities it touches, keeping its 425,000 employees engaged, communicating those core CSR values, and giving back.

I was able to learn more about how such a big company communicates its CSR values, through an interview with Neil Barrett, Sodexo’s Group VP of Sustainable Development. All italicized text is that of Mr. Barrett’s.

Sodexo’s Better Tomorrow Plan is structured around four pillars and sets out 18 defined commitments.

This structure governs who we are, what we do and how we engage with our clients, consumers, suppliers, and communities, in fact all of our stakeholders in order to be a responsible company.

But that is a lot of initiatives to remember, so in order to share them with the general public, we looked for common themes and came up with those four communications priorities, based on what our research said people cared about most...

The four macro themes of Sodexo’s CSR communications are:

1) A responsible employer: Our commitments as an employer talk about who we are as a company, with our commitments to diversity and inclusion, health and safety, human rights and developing our employees.

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How Sodexo Stays Local: #FF Feature

Companies4Good — Fri, 10 May 2013 07:00:00 GMT

By Allison McGuire | @Calimcg

Sodexo is a global quality of life services company, reaching 75 million people on a daily basis. In spite of its size, Sodexo is committed to the local communities it touches and keeping its nearly half a million employees engaged in its mission and values..

Through an interview with Neil Barrett, Sodexo’s Group VP of Sustainable Development, I was able to learn more about how such a big company can be so personal. All italicized text is that of Mr. Barrett’s.

On being a local, global company:

The importance of being local, and recognizing the local impacts we have, is essential to our business. We have operations on 34,000 sites, ranging from one or two people to teams with several hundred employees. Those employees, 97 percent of whom are from the community in which they are working, are our direct connection to that community. The lives they touch every day – at work and during their non-working hours are in their local community.

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Futuristic Cause Marketers

Companies4Good — Thu, 09 May 2013 07:00:00 GMT

By Allison McGuire | @Calimcg & Kate Olsen | @Kate4Good

There’s a recent HBR post entitled What the Marketing Agency of the Future Will Do Differently that’s worth a read for anyone interested in marketing professionally and/or considering marketing services.

Mitch Joel outlines five ways agencies can and should adapt to the content-is-king, consumer-is-queen age. We found three of these to be particularly relevant to cause marketers.

1) Leanness. Joel explores why this concept is critical to a nimble marketing. Having the ability to create campaigns in-house, and tweak and optimize messaging/content throughout, is key to successful cause marketing.

The marketing team (brand + agency staff) must be nimble and responsive to the market and new opportunities. While cause marketing might not be that nimble (yet), some brand marketers are moving in that direction already. When the power went out for 34 minutes at the Super Bowl earlier this year, Oreo responded via social media with “Power Out? No problem” accompanied by the image of a solitary Oreo and the caption “You can still dunk in the dark.” That type of response is not possible if marketing messages have to go through multiple levels of approval before they see the light of day (so to speak).

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Do Consumers Trust Your Cause?

Companies4Good — Thu, 02 May 2013 07:00:00 GMT

By Katya Andresen | @KatyaN4G

The following is a guest post from Network for Good's CSO & COO. A similar version originally appeared on her blog, Katya's Non-Profit Marketing Blog.

A new study conducted by Good.Must.Grow has found consumers are apt to like and buy products from socially responsible companies - but they also question the claims of corporations who say they are committed to the greater good.

In the poll of 1,015 Americans, nearly a third of respondents claimed to have sought out socially responsible companies and a quarter said they avoided buying products from a company specifically because it wasn’t socially responsible. A majority (60%) of the study participants said buying goods from socially responsible companies was important to them, though a good deal tended to trump that consideration.

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TalentZoo's 5 I's of Employee Engagement

Companies4Good — Wed, 15 May 2013 13:44:50 GMT

By Allison McGuire | @Calimcg

This is a continuation of yesterday's post.

Let’s face it: Engaged employees are the best. I don’t mean the best at their jobs—although that can be true—I mean the most spirited, zestful people.

TalentZoo recently explored the ‘5 I’s’ of employee engagement. Definitely check out the post in its entirety, and find part II of our take below.

1) Inform.

2) Inspire.

3) Instruct. As we’ve mentioned before, everyone can use professional skillset enhancements—especially Millennials. By providing employees with clear directives and leadership opportunities, you set them up to succeed.

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Deep Thoughts on Employee Engagement

Companies4Good — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 07:00:00 GMT

By Allison McGuire | @Calimcg

Think about some of your favorite people. Why do you like them so much? Do they frequently smile or have something nice to say? Do they like to laugh? Are they passionate? Not that these characteristics are requirements of engaging people, but more often than not, people who are passionate about something, anything, are more engaged at work.

Think about your office. Do you gravitate towards your coworker who is thrilled to start a new project or the one who disagrees with everything?

Let’s face it: Engaged employees are the best. I don’t mean the best at their jobs—although that can be true—I mean the most spirited, zestful people.

TalentZoo wrote a piece on the ‘5 I’s’ of employee engagement. Definitely check out the post in its entirety, and find our take on the 5 I’s below.

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Equipping Your Workforce with Mobile

Companies4Good — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 07:00:00 GMT

By Kate Olsen | @Kate4Good

Employees are hungry for ways to opt-in to volunteer programs, make donations, and monitor personal impact via their smart phones. This is particularly true for companies with a large portion of the workforce consistently on the road. Here are a few ideas from our partner YourCause to help your company move towards a mobile-friendly employee engagement portfolio.

1.       Pick the Right Partner(s)

2.       Equip your Workforce

3.       Have a Policy

Read the full post here.

Do More, Feel Better, Live Longer: Follow Friday Feature

Companies4Good — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 07:00:00 GMT

By Allison McGuire | @Calimcg

Similar to the Daft Punk song, GlaxoSmithKline’s mission is “to do more, feel better, and live longer”. Through its skill-based international volunteering program, PULSE, the company contributes to that mission via changing communities, employees, and the overall company.

When announcing the program back in 2009, CEO Andrew Witty remarked, “There will be a real opportunity … for those people who really feel they want to give something back to society to do that. It is a great chance for our company and the individual to add tremendous value which otherwise cannot be bought.” He elaborates on PULSE and its benefits here.

I had the opportunity to learn more about the program from GSK Investigator and PULSE volunteer, Nick Falco. For six months, he worked alone at the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) in Abuja, Nigeria. Check out our conversation below, and Falco’s cool Tumblr cataloguing the experience here.

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Multichannel CSR Communications

Companies4Good — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:00:00 GMT

By Kate Olsen | @Kate4Good

According to the 2012 Cone Communications Corporate Social Return Trend Tracker, 86% of Americans wish companies would tell them more about the results of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts but only 37% know where to find information about a company’s CSR efforts and results.

The bottom line is that consumers shouldn’t have to know where to find information on your CSR efforts. Here are 3 ways you can pepper impact content throughout your multichannel communications.

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Roll Up Your Sleeves: It’s Volunteer Week

Companies4Good — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 07:00:00 GMT

By Allison McGuire | @calimcg

As you may know, this week—April 21-27—is Volunteer Week, which is a great reason to engage your employees for good. For example, I’m coordinating a team volunteer outing to help one of our nonprofit customers.

Edelman’s goodpurpose blog has a terrific breakdown on how different generations think about volunteer opportunities at work. The highlights are below, but be sure to read the whole post too.

Millennials

Having a corporate volunteering program is a boon to recruiting top Millennial talent. My generation looks fondly upon employers that support employees’ connection to cause. Show appreciation for your passionate employee volunteers (and increase brand loyalty!) with charity rewards. Not only will you incent positive behavior, but volunteers will feel good about paying it forward.

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Help Your Employees Share Your Cause Programs

Companies4Good — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 07:00:00 GMT

By Kate Olsen

The best ambassadors for your cause portfolio are the employees actively engaged in your programs. Equip those employees to tell their personal story about why they care, how they help and what it means to be able to do it alongside other employees. Here are a few suggestions to help your employees share the call to action to get involved and make a difference.

Update your Status: If your company has an employee social network or community, seed a conversation dedicated to social impact, preferably visible to the larger community and not just people opted-in to hear about cause programs. Then invite your employees to update their status every time they participate in a volunteer activity or hear about a cool nonprofit project. Employees can also congratulate peers on completing social good projects and generally spread the word about how to give back.

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Adding Micro Actions to Employee Involvement Programs

Companies4Good — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 07:00:00 GMT

By Kate Olsen

Small social good actions can be gateway opportunities to engage employees in cause without overwhelming them by a big upfront commitment. Or they can be complementary to other offline community commitments or habitual charitable giving.

Research from the Georgetown University Center for Social Impact Communication and Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide proves that people who engage in micro actions for good are twice as likely to volunteer their time and three times as likely to engage in peer-to-peer fundraising efforts for their cause, among other noteworthy findings. Here are three ways to add micro actions to your employee cause portfolio.

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Boston Marathon: How to Help

Companies4Good — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 07:00:00 GMT

We are completely heartbroken over the tragic bombings at the Boston Marathon this Monday. Like you, our thoughts are with the victims and families.

If you're looking for ways to help, we’ve created the following action list:

• Support Boston Marathon runners and their charities. You can learn more about the John Hancock nonprofit program and donate to runners’ fundraisers here.

•    Make an appointment to donate blood. While the Red Cross is not currently soliciting funds or blood for the Boston area, the organization asks anyone interested in donating blood to make an appointment to give in the coming months. You can learn more here.

•    Follow #BostonHelp on Twitter to learn about additional ways to volunteer.

Additional information on the giving response:

•    Massachusetts and Boston officials have announced the formation of The One Fund Boston to raise money to help those families most affected by the tragic events. The fund is currently awaiting 501c3 status and Network for Good will be able to process donations once their status is confirmed. Boston Marathon sponsor John Hancock has pledged $1M to the fund. You can learn more at One Fund Boston.

•    The Association of Grant Makers in Boston will meet via webinar on Thursday to discuss a larger philanthropic response. More information about the event is available here.

Image via CNN : Students from the Clifden Academy hold an American flag and candles during a vigil on April 16 in Dorcester, Massachusetts, in honor of 8-year-old Martin Richard, who was killed in the bombings.

Taking Employee Engagement Global

Companies4Good — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 07:00:00 GMT

By Kate Olsen

Many companies see global volunteerism as an invaluable component of any company’s cause portfolio, even if the workforce isn’t internationally-based. Global opportunities to give back are particularly important, though, for companies seeking to make an impact in all the communities in which they operate. Here are a few suggestions to help take your employee cause programs global.

Give Internationally: Adding international charities to your employee giving roster allows globally-based employees to support charities in their countries through annual giving campaigns. Global donation options also allow US-based employees to support causes they may care about doing work in other countries.

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