Nov. 27, 2017 "Building a 'model' corporate social responsibility program": Today I found this article by Cheryl Treliving in the Globe and Mail. I like this article because it's about a business donating and working with charities:
Executive director, Boston Pizza Foundation, Future Prospects.
It's the Catch-22 of corporate social responsibility: People expect successful companies to give back, but there's also an ingrained public cynicism that assumes any good a business does is in its own best interest.
So, how exactly can organizations make a difference in their community without creating indifference around their efforts or looking like their motivations are ultimately self-serving?
Around 2010, the Boston Pizza Foundation (BPF) felt this indifference. We were writing big cheques to a number of worthy charities and causes, but we couldn't exactly quantify what was being accomplished. And we felt this lack of impact throughout our company – from franchisees to employees to guests.
Since that day, we changed our entire approach to giving back. We built a corporate social responsibility (CSR) program we are proud of, BPF Future Prospects, with one goal and focus: providing kids across Canada with access to strong role models. And we've raised a lot of money – $24-million and counting. More importantly, we can now see the difference we're making. The results are tangible and the impact is real.
Here's how you too can build an effective CSR program:
Make it authentic
Before selecting mentoring and the importance of role models as our foundation's signature cause, we engaged a third-party organization, ORENDA Connections, with expertise in corporate social responsibility and program development. While this may sound less authentic on the surface, this wasn't a case where we leaned on focus groups and market research to uncover a trendy topic.
We created a task force of key stakeholders in and outside of our organization to find a cause that held equal importance to our brand, franchisees, employees and guests.
We asked ourselves, "Who are we as a company?" And we looked at what we do each and every day as restaurant operators within our four walls and in the communities we operate. As one of Canada's biggest employers of first-time employees, we recognized we were already heavily involved in the lives of young people.
We then looked at the makeup of our vast franchisee community and how many of them came from various walks of life before being mentored to become successful restaurateurs by others in our organization, including my father Jim.
We quickly began to feel a real excitement and strong synergy between who we are as a company and how, through our philanthropy, we could have an impact in the communities we worked and played in.
Mentoring was at the very core of our business. From there, it was a matter of engaging the charities we now support as partners in this goal. To make a difference through mentorship, we focused on giving money to ideas and initiatives that aligned with our mission.
Take a hands-on approach
When choosing a charity partner, you want to look for an organization that is efficient and uses its funding wisely, but you also want one that's perpetually evolving. Kids Help Phone met the gold standard for us in that respect.
Once a charity that connected with kids solely over the phone, it has adapted its services to change with the times, serving at-risk youth through social media, mobile devices and online chats.
In addition to Kids Help Phone, we work with great organizations such as Big Brothers Big Sisters, the JDRF, Live Different and the Rick Hansen Foundation. With each of them, we establish donation agreements, with the theme of partnering for change.
This is certainly not an arrangement where we hand out oversized cheques once a year and hope for the best. Because we're a national organization, we want to make sure we're making an impact in as many communities as possible, on as many kids as possible. Therefore, we're in regular contact with our partners, sometimes on a weekly or even daily basis, and we're actively involved in all of the programs that our dollars flow to.
Build long-term partnerships
While no charity is going to turn down your money, you have to recognize the inherent limitations of a one-time donation. Operating with limited budgets and resources, it's almost impossible for a charity to create new programming or services if it doesn't know whether you will be providing the same level of funding the following year.
The commitments we make with our partners are generally for five years, and we work with one another over that time to build new programs and find new solutions. Over the years, our experience has shown us that good things often take time to develop.
Impact isn't always immediate. You need to commit to working alongside your charitable partners to achieve your collective goals.
At the same time, you should always be looking for opportunities to bring your charitable partners together. Just by getting our partners in the same room, we've seen incredible synergies develop between Kids Help Phone and both Big Brother Big Sisters and Live Different over the past few years. That only happens when you have one cause that all your partners support and fully commit to.
Give people reason to believe
For a CSR program to be successful, your business has to believe in it from the bottom up. In our case, many of the 22,000 young people we employ across the country have personal experience with the programs we support. While growing up, they might have called Kids Help Phone, were a Little Brother or Sister, or were inspired toward social activism by one of Live Different's motivational in-school presentations. They know firsthand how invaluable the right support, guidance and inspiration can be to a young person.
This kind of engagement is a big deal. You want your front line employees to know which charities and causes you support and why, and feeling empowered by that. Even more important, of course, is building trust with your customers.
People work hard for their paycheques, and when they're asked to donate, you have to show them exactly where their money is going.
When we tell Canadians that last year their donations made through our fall and Valentine's Day promotions helped provide young people with 200,000 hours of valuable time with role models, they see a pretty compelling reason to give.
Simply put, people want to make an impact and it is the responsibility of every business to provide customers with the chance to make a real difference. The only trick is in finding a cause that is as authentic to your company as it is to your customers.
Dec. 19, 2017 "John Paul DeJoria went from homeless to billionaire by following 3 simple rules":
It's not often that a homeless person living out of his car can dramatically alter his circumstances and become a billionaire. ButJohn Paul DeJoria— co-founder of hair-care company John Paul Mitchell Systems and high-end Patrón Spirits — did just that.
The 73-year-old now has a net worth of $3.1 billion, according to Forbes. His climb out of poverty reads like a tale from a Charles Dickens' novel.
The one time door-to-door shampoo and encyclopedia salesman partnered with Paul Mitchell in 1980, and the two turned $700 into one of the most profitable hair-care companies in the world. Not too long after their company took off, Mitchell died of cancer and DeJoria took over.
Today the company generates $1 billion in annual revenues. His tequila company is also a megahit. Patrón tequila is made in Mexico in a sustainable distilling facility that uses recycled bottles and leftover distilled water to fertilize the land. Now more than 2 million cases are sold each year.
As he sums it up: "I have been so down and out in my life. It makes me feel really good to be financially blessed and give back. I get great joy and a great high out of it. It's my way of paying rent on this planet to share with others less fortunate."
More from iCONIC:
The 5 workplace myths this tech CEO busted on the way to $1 billion
The power couple that turned a passion into a $230 million retail empire
This is the No. 1 skill to live the life you want:
The billionaire remembers giving a dime to the Salvation Army when he was six years old and living in Los Angeles. His mom told him, 'You may be poor, but there are so many people less fortunate than you, and every little bit helps.'" Those words have always stuck with me," DeJoria recalls.
In addition, he established JP's Peace Love & Happiness Foundation as a hub for his charitable donations to causes that reflect the core values of his companies: saving the environment, helping the poor and protecting animal rights.
Through his foundation, he has raised millions of dollars to support 163 charities around the world.
They include Grow Appalachia, a program that provides seed and tools to help poor families in six states throughout central Appalachia grow their own food to combat malnutrition;
and Sea Shepherd, a marine wildlife conservation society that confronts illegal poaching and destruction of wildlife in the world's oceans.
This Thanksgiving he visited Mobile Loaves & Fishes' Community First Village in Austin, Texas, where they are building an innovative housing model that helps the homeless learn skills, earn income and get affordable housing.
So how did DeJoria maintain motivation and build such an expansive empire? He says there were three rules he followed on his path to success.
Rule No. 1: Always be prepared for rejection. Throughout your career you are going to run across rejection, DeJoria points out. "You will knock on doors, and many will close on you. There will be people who don't like your product, your company — or you." It's important you realize this from the day you launch your business.
"To be successful, you must remain as confident and enthusiastic on door No. 59 as you were on door No. 1." If you realize this is going to happen, the rejection won't hit you so hard. It will help you be resilient, he explains.
Rule No. 2: Make sure your product or service is the best it can be.
DeJoria is adamant: "Always remember you don't want to be in the product business. You want to be in the reorder business."
As he explains, Work hard to develop a world-class product consumers want. That kind of thinking gives you a better shot at being a success.
Rule No. 3: Doing good is good for you — and your business.
"If a business wants to stay in business, it cannot just think of today's bottom line," says DeJoria. It must make a company commitment to help others immediately.
"By helping others, you are creating future customers and inspiring employee loyalty," he explains.
"Customers like to be involved with people and businesses that donate their time to help others, save the planet and make a difference."
Demonstrating that point, DeJoria notes that since he started Paul Mitchell in 1980, His total employee turnover has been less than 100, and two of those workers retired.
There isn't a theme this week, but here are the other 2 blog posts about job articles:
"Gen Y Work Woes: Going up a down escalator"/ "Older Canadians not the problem"
"What it's like to help select a new crop of astronauts"/ "What it's like to an emergency physician who's had enough"
My week:
Dec. 15, 2020 Back up your digital data: I have been busy all week by backing up my digital data. I have done this as a project once a year for the past few years. Last year I uploaded all my cds and songs onto the iTunes on my 2004 computer because it still has a cd-rom.
I can then transfer the songs onto my iPod.
You should go through your computer, tablets, and other devices to see if there is anything you want to save onto a:
1. USB key
2. Email it to yourself (it's in the sent section of one email account).
3. And the other email (in your inbox.)
4. Saved onto a cloud. I'm not quite sure how that works.
This is a good project. Are there any things you want to save?:
-school assignments
-work assignments
-songs
-pictures
-videos
-memories
Or at the very least delete.
Conor Maynard song "Pictures": I really like this song.
"MacKenzie Scott, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos's ex-wife, donates $4.2 billion in last four months": This is about positive news about donating to charity. Of course I have to read this and post about this on my blog and Facebok:
MacKenzie Scott, former wife of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, said she donated over $4.2 billion in the last four months to 384 organizations in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington D.C., that address pressing needs amid the coronavirus pandemic, as well as those that combat entrenched inequalities.
“Some are filling basic needs: food banks, emergency relief funds, and support services for those most vulnerable,” Scott wrote in her Medium blog post. “Others are addressing long-term systemic inequities that have been deepened by the crisis: debt relief, employment training, credit and financial services for under-resourced communities, education for historically marginalized and underserved people, civil rights advocacy groups, and legal defense funds that take on institutional discrimination.”
The move follows Scott’s contribution of more than $1.7 billion to diverse organizations in July, which included historically Black colleges and universities.
To accelerate her 2020 giving, Scott tapped a team of advisors, using a data-driven approach to help identify “organizations with strong leadership teams and results, with special attention to those operating in communities facing high projected food insecurity, high measures of racial inequity, high local poverty rates, and low access to philanthropic capital,” she wrote.
After divorcing Bezos, Scott promised in March 2019 to give away at least half of her fortune to charity as part of the Giving Pledge, an initiative founded in 2010 by billionaires Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett that encourages the world’s richest people to donate more than half of their wealth to charitable causes.
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