Business Doing Better at Doing Good- 2011 Trends in Business Philanthropy

The month of January is named after the god Janus, the god with two heads, one looking behind and one looking forward. Apparently the god Saturn, gave Janus the introspective ability to see into the past and the gift of seeing into the future. I can make no claims of having god-like abilities, but in reviewing the past year's stories and tweets, it seems that there is trend is to find newer and better ways for business to do good.

And these are the trends I see that will be significant in the year of 2011 for creating positive new directions in business philanthropy.

Using the Social Sciences to Understand the Dynamics of Giving Behavior

More and more studies in social psychology and behavioral economics have been addressing the question of what motivates people to give. Businesses hoping to use cause marketing and to engage their customers in giving, and non-profits seeking to find ways to get more value from their corporate sponsorships should tap into these research studies more. Take for example, the recent study about amusement park goers who paid more for their photos on a ride when they could choose their own price and the profits went to charity. Sceptics of the Panera Cares Business Model, (we profiled their first cafe opening, St Louis Bread Company Cares) which is an example of this kind of approach, should check out the video on CBS News.
For more research studies on consumer giving behavior check out: Ways Your Company Can Give More Bang For the Buck.

CSR's Umbrella


Last year I predicted that Cause Marketing and Corporate Giving would become more differentiated. Well I was wrong. The lines have gotten even blurrier between CSR, Employee Volunteerism, EVP, Cause Marketing and Corporate Giving. Is it more that they are distinctions or that they justifiably fall under the CSR umbrella? More and people cite all of these in the context of each other and often interchangeably. Beth Kanter suggests in her blog post.Corporate Altruism: The Blurring of the Lines Between CSR and Cause Marketing that perhaps the lines do not distinguish one fore another but that it is more of a continuum. CSR this past year has been struggling with finding a definition of itself, but more than being a continuum, I like the image of an overencompassing arc, like that of an umbrella..

Employee Drive Philanthropy


Yahoo employees do it, Blackbaud's employees do it and GiveSomethingBack's employees do it: various forms of employees recommending charities; designing the giving programs often in forms such as competitions,scholarships; sitting on the grants committee; and other forms of direct emplyee involvement.
Employers are seeing that when giving back to the community is a company grassroots effort, not only is there more by-in from the employees, more total giving in time and money, but also more loyalty given back to the company.

Skills Based Volunteering 

While providing extra hands for bagging food or assembling backpacks will never go away as an important function of Employee Volunteer Programs, more meaningful ways for employees to help communities are
emerging.  Bea Boccalandri of the BCCCC, has been advocating that businesses create more of these kinds of asset based opportunities for employees volunteering as a way for companies to provide their employees with more engaging and rewarding experiences that help build the capacity of the non-profit organization  in more sustainable ways. Skills based volunteering also serves as great employee training opportunities for the companies involved. Her suggestions may seem radical, and so she acknowledges that these changes need to be small at first and that both types of volunteering can co-exist. And she cites examples of companies like Aetna and Hasbro and Levis that have been doing so.


Directed Giving Through Voting and Liking

Using social media to involve the public in making the decision for a company's giving is going to get bigger and bigger. It's an approach that appeals to many as it can engage thousands in feeling that they can contribute in some small way by voting for their favorite charity or "liking" a facebook page, that results in an award or donation given by a business to the winner. Witness the Pepsi Refresh Project, (which I mentioned in last year's trends picks, The Classy Awards, (where two of our featured businesses, Sweets Trucks and GiveSomethingBack were finalists, and the American Express Small Business Day, where just a vote on a  website or a Facebook "like", brought about large corporate funding towards specific projects and causes.

More Public Scrutiny

As businesses will continue to involve the public in their giving programs, so will the public be more involved in the judgment of corporate giving. Witness the outcry over the Punk Buckets for a Cure, BOBS Shoes and Target's funding of political campaign. While some of the public will want to be more included in corporate giving, others like Michael Hiltzik of the LA Times (who gave us a cool shout out) may want to be left alone to their own philanthropy.
Whatever a company does, you can be sure the public will be watching to make sure that a company's giving is neither insincere, nor causing harm in any way other way, nor just plain dumb.

New Forms of Philanthropic Business Models 

While many were dubious of Panera's business model, more and businesses are coming up with innovative philanthropic business models. Even staid Nordstrom is planning to open a philanthropic department store in Manhattan with all profits going to charity. We have seen the B corp becoming recognized as a legal entity in several more states. Several forms of "buy one give one" business models, and more businesses like Panera with "set your own pricing schemes" have sprung up.
It is possible, of course, that some of these innovative philanthropic businesses will fail, but perhaps at no higher rate no than other start ups. And if so, so be it,  innovation requires taking taking on the risks of failure, but also the rewards of success and of leading the way in developing a whole new sector.


In spite of what I consider my one missed prediction for 2010, I think that last year's predictions, which you can read here, have proven to hold up and will grow to have even more importance in 2011. Business giving in partnership with consumers, non-profits and communities, will be evolving and will create better solutions to local and global problems.


I look forward to bringing more of these stories here in 2011.










rcdp5gz4

Break Open the Bubbly! Best of 2010 Awards for Philanthropic, Benevolent, Purpose Driven Businesses

Benjamin Franklin's adage: "Do Well by Doing Good " has never proven to be so true as this past year. While this has been a tough economic year for many companies, businesses that have been founded on the principle of blending philanthropy and a purpose with good business have been thriving. And receiving recognition for doing so has become an exciting trend in 2010.

This past fall nearly every major city or region has held business philanthropy awards with categories for both large corporations and small businesses and we noted some of these award ceremonies in November. Yet more and more philanthropic businesses and their founders have been receiving  awards or accolades from their industry peers not only for their outstanding commitments and contributions to their communities through volunteering and philanthropy but also, and more remarkably, for their success in building and growing businesses with quality products. These achievements are especially notable as they prove that businesses that do good can indeed do well in spite of the difficult economic times.

The following businesses have been profiled here, and we are proud to have discovered them early on!

Lauren Bush of FEED, was honored to accept the Humanitarian of the Year award at The Accessories Council Excellence (ACE) Awards

Next week I am excited to go hear the founder of the FEED, Lauren Bush speak at my daughter's alma mater, a local girl's private high school in the area. What excites me is that last July we profiled the FEED project, a company that sells FEED bags, handbags and now also other fashion accessories that help support programs that are eradicating hunger. Since then, this philanthropic venture has not only expanded their product line, captured general acclaim for their humanitarianism, but has also garnered awards and recognitions from the fashion accessories industry as well.

Ecojot: has won the Bronze at the 2010 Canadian Design Exchange Award. The category was Visual Communications Brand & Identity.

Last June, we profiled Ecojot, makers of 100% post-consumer recycled paper products which donates school supplies to kids in need around the world through their corporate giving model  "Buy one, we give one". What was special about this award to Ecojot was the acclaim they received for the design quality of their products from the industry, while having their philanthropic purpose acknowledged at the ceremony.

Mission Street Chinese: 2010 winner of the Eater Awards for " Empire Builder of the Year, San Francisco" from Eater.com

Well I don't know exactly what "Empire Builder" means, but it sounds great and perhaps refers to the amazing transformation that this business has gone through. Mission Street Chinese/Restaurant along with its sister restaurant Commonwealth, began as a food truck and then became Mission Street Food -where they rented the space of a Chinese restaurant two nights a week and donated a portion of their proceeds to local causes. Their story launched and inspired our blog , as they have been a "benevolent business" (as they call themselves) from their very beginnings and continue to do so. I like the idea of benevolent business empires!

Give Something Back: San Francisco Business Times’ Community Change & Impact Award; U.S. Small Business Administration Business of the Year; Newman's Own/George Award; E-Achievement Award; San Francisco Business Times Top Corporate Philanthropists Awards; Inc. Magazine’s “Inc. 100 and Inc. 500” (8 out of 9 years); Classy Awards finalist for Philanthropic Business of the Year

We profiled the company Give Something Back, an office products company in a three part interview with founder Mike Hannigan. Since then, Give Something Back has been receiving awards and acclaim for both their philanthropic business model and their achievement in business growth  from so many organizations and institutions.

Sweets Truck: Classy Awards finalist for Small Philanthropic Business of the Year;named 2010 Los Angeles Small Philanthropic Business of the Year

When we first wrote about Sweets Truck and their commitment to support their community, we found the idea very sweet and charming, not to mention yummy. Then later we were very excited about their nomination for Classy Awards an awards competition recognizing the top philanthropic achievements by charities, businesses, and individuals in eight major cities nationwide.

e-Cycle: Inc. magazine has named e-Cycle number 763 in its 2010 Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing, privately-held, for-profit companies in the U.S.

Perhaps the most telling of all the awards and acclaim are the ones that come from industry leaders acknowledging the success of a business. e-Cycle has proven to be a leader amongst philanthropic and green companies achieving business success not in spite of their purpose, but most likely as a result. We were thrilled to interview their co-founder, Tonia Irion about the philanthropic side of their business.


Congratulations to all of these business for their achievements and for their inspiration to others.I look forward to seeing this trend of recognizing philanthropic businesses to build even more in 2011. It is going to be a great year with more and more businesses becoming philanthropic and more and more public acclaim for their mission to "do well by doing good".

B1G1 – Global Giving Partnering Businesses With Charities

Buy One Give One (BOGO) is the home of transaction-based giving.

STOP. Take a breath. And imagine you were part of a world where every single transaction made a difference.

Imagine, for a moment, you purchased a television, and automatically a cataract-blind person got the gift of sight. Automatically. Or imagine if today you purchased a cup of coffee and someone in Africa got access to clean, pure drinking water as a direct result. Again automatically.

It’s all happening right now. Already Buy1GIVE1 (Buy1/Give1) has become a true global giving ‘village’, bringing together businesses, their customers and worthy causes in a way that’s never been done before.

It’s happening globally, every second, every day and in every way with a staggering 556 projects already underway and making a difference.

That’s because in the Buy1GIVE1 world, every single sales transaction, be it buying a cup of coffee in Cape Town or renting a car in Reno (and everything in between) gives back in a well-defined, resonant and measurable way.

In this present economy, when both corporations and charities have seen a decrease in profits and donations, cause-related marketing appears to really be catching on. Cause-related marketing is a business scheme involving a partnership between a company with a product to sell and a charity with a cause to advance. As opposed to “corporate philanthropy,” which simply involves a company making a tax-deductible charitable donation, cause-related marketing benefits both the company (by helping to increase sales, and thus, profits), and the charity (by giving contributions and calling attention to the cause.)

You buy a book, a tree gets planted. You dine out, a child is fed. Buy One Give One – simple. The list is endless and the giving simply happens automatically, every second, every day and in every way.

And it is beautifully simple. Buy1GIVE1 is now becoming a global movement as more and more businesses jump on board and enjoy the incredible benefits of transaction based giving.

In Buy1GIVE1, they made sure that in all cases, the consumers are not only involved in CSR initiatives on a daily basis. Buy1-Give1 generates answers to that and it does it every second, every day and in every way.

Discover more about how Buy1GIVE1 (BOGO) can transform your business using Cause Marketing.

This article, B1G1 – Global Giving Partnering Businesses With Charities has free reprint rights.


Article From Articles Cafe

How Philanthopy, NGO's and BOGO's Might Be Hurting and Helping Africa

We have been touting here various "Buy One Give One" "BOGO" business giving models, as great examples of innovative business philanthropy-business blended with social mission. So when I came across a recent post by R.Todd Johnson:Reflections on Ethiopia,Is Philanthropy Killing Africa?  suggesting that BOGO businesses, like NGO's, are hurting Africa by destroying  local small businesses and squashing entrepreneurism, I needed to investigate the impact of these philanthropic ventures to perhaps defend and justify their purpose.

But first, to support Todd Johnson's view, and I believe he really brings up some good points, I recently heard a story from a friend of mine, a successful entrepreneur, who went down to Bolivia to help revitalize an ailing weaving industry that has been destroyed by donated clothing delivered to these poor regions. He saw indigenous people in the remote areas in the Andes walking around wearing Stanford sweatshirts. One wonders what else has been squashed here.

Yes, there is a point here, but does it always apply? On the philanthropic side, there is this view that people can't even learn to fish, so to speak, while they are sick, hungry, cold, and uneducated. On the impact side, there is plenty evidence that indicates a failure in the delivery and benefits of aid and handouts, not just in Africa, but at a more local level.

This whole question of whether aid is essential to the development of countries, or whether it is killing it, has been debated in much higher circles than I can ever reach. Paul Solman the economics reporter on PBS's Lehrer News Hour did a story: Authors Analyze, Criticize Foreign Aid Agencies in New Books, where he took on this subject with a point and counterpoint between two very highly respected economists and authors, Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, and William Easterly of NYU. Although each side used very convincing arguments backed by their research to defend their position while criticising the other, Paul Solman concludes that they both agree on one thing-accountability is essential. I urge anyone interested in understanding the complexity of this issue to read their books and research.


Todd Johnson compared BOGO businesses with NGO's  and used the slightly obscured example of one such company TOMS Shoes that donates shoes to children in Africa as an example of a "well intentioned" but "hurting to a long term sustainable solution"- because, as he puts it:

"First, as long as rural Africans have an opportunity to potentially receive free shoes donated by a U.S. shoe company, why would they want to pay for shoes? Second, as long as rural Africans are unwilling to pay for shoes, how can local African shoemakers hope to have a flourishing local business?"

First of all, the comparison between a business and a NGO makes no sense. Because these businesses have been formed with a double or triple bottom line purpose, they are accountable to their stakeholders: the founders, partners, investors, customers. And with the increasing use of social media and marketing, their impact  becomes, by necessity, more transparent than an NGO's. This changes the game, as the stakeholders can insist that their buy one, give one purchase and donation does no harm.

I first wrote about TOMS shoes well over a year ago, when it was a fledgling social enterprise. So now it seemed it was good time to check on their accountability. Toms Shoes, it turns out, addresses this very question 

From TOMS Shoes:

“Do no harm”. Even in very poor countries, some local shops sell shoes. We work with our partners to ensure that the children receiving our shoes truly could not afford to purchase them on their own, to minimize the negative impact on the local shoe-selling economy. We also work with our partners to make sure children are not experiencing negative stigma as a result of wearing our shoes – sometimes wearing shoes in a community where shoes are rare can actually make a child stand out in a bad way!

Many times children can't attend school barefoot because shoes are a required part of their uniform. If they don't have shoes, they don't go to school. If they don't receive an education, they don't have the opportunity to realize their potential."

Then there is Socks for Happy People, which we profiled here several months ago. For every pair that is bought they give a pair socks to Mongolian street children who often have to endure temperatures as low as -40°C.. AND these donated socks have been made locally in Mongolia from Mongolian camel hair. And they have a wider social mission too: "that of providing inspiration and education to entrepreneurs and consumers".
Why would they want to kill the very thing they are hoping to inspire?

I just recently learned about BOGO light, the solar powered flashlights where one light is donated to an affiliate non-profit for every light purchased. Mark Bent, the founder of BOGO lights had lived and worked in Africa for many years where he saw the urgency in providing sustainable light sources. Aside from these flashlights being very environmental for everyone who owns one, they have a major impact on health, safety and education of women and children, especially in these developing countries. More than likely he also saw the urgency of providing Africans the means to develop their own businesses.

Can giving a child in a impoverished country a solar powered flashlight so they can study at night really "kill Africa"?  Mark Bent, who deeply loves Africa, probably doesn't think so.

And I don't either- until you show me some real analysis.

Business Giving: How the Small Number "One" Can Make a Big Difference

One little number, the number "one"-can pack a powerful punch in corporate philanthropy and small business giving by making a difference to one person, to one organization, to one cause.

There is a story that is often told to illustrate the philanthropic principle of the power of "one". The story goes like this: A man was walking on the beach when he came across a  boy who was sifting through the debris. When the boy found a starfish he would throw it back into the sea. The man asked the boy why he was doing that and he replied that a the starfish will die if they are out of the water for too long. "But you can't possibly save all of them?" "No," the boy said, "but I can save that one."

Businesses are discovering that allocating even a small amount of their resources to a variety of causes, can create meaningful impact. In our upcoming three part series we will have take a look at three business giving models that are designed around the concept of "one", and that have invited other businesses to join them in finding innovative ways to give back to humanity and the world.


Buy One, Give One- Buy1Give1- One For One- all about giving "one" to someone need, for every one bought.

TOMS Shoes has rapidly become the sweetheart of the philanthropic world with their appealing model of giving a pair of shoes to one needy child, for every pair of shoes bought. We wrote about TOMS' One for One model, a little more than a year ago, and the number of businesses since then that engage in this type philanthropic model  has mushroomed.  And other companies like Socks For Happy People have adopted  a Buy One, Give One Model also.
And Buy1Give1 is a transaction based membership organization that helps businesses donate to good causes. 

One Percent
One Percent For the Planet, developed by Yvon Chouinard the founder of Patagonia - is an alliance of  businesses that promise to donate 1 percent of profits to environmental causes.
One Percent For Humanity is an association of businesses committed to giving at least 1% of their annual revenues to approved non-profit humanitarian organizations.

1/1/1  Model

Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com  has created  salesforce.com's integrated philanthropy 1/1/1 Model — a commitment to giving one percent of profits, one percent of employee volunteer time, and donating one percent of products to non-profit organizations.
Salesforce.com's visionary 1/1/1 integrated philanthropy model now includes a  fourth "1" - one with the Earth

Here are some ideas any sized business can use to build on the concept of giving "one".
Just do one thing!  sponsor one child, give to one school, one day of fundraising, match one dollar for dollar, customers add on one dollar to a sale, a penny jar collection, a promotion on the first of every month.

Collectively one can become many, and one can make a big difference. The important thing is realize that even a small amount of giving back can make a difference for humanity and the world.

What is "ONE" way your business can use the number one to give back?

Ecojot : Using the Philanthropic Model of Buy One Give One, Workbooks for Kids Around the World

Ecojot makers of 100% post-consumer recycled paper products donates school supplies to kids in need around the world through their corporate giving model  "buy one, give one".  For every Recycled Journal, Notebook, Sketchbook, or Calendar that is sold, they will donate and ship workbooks to children who cannot afford school supplies. Partnering with the Ve'ahavta KinderKits Program, their first shipment was sent along with medical supplies to Zimbabwe.

Originally called the Mirage Paper Co., three years ago Mark Gavin the head of marketing and his sister,Carolyn, embraced the trend of businesses taking on social responsibility by becoming more green as well as giving to social causes in the world. Mark and Carolyn  developed a  line of  green stationary made entirely from waste material that is locally made in Canada. Their products use acid-free  processed chlorine free paper, glues are vegetable based and  bio-degradable, paper is made from recycled materials, and all packaging is corn based

Ecojot's corporate giving also supports the non-profit environmental organization Canopy, that works to protect all the world's forests, species and climate. They are proud to donate $1 from the sale of each 'bou" (as in caribou) journal to Canopy which is promoting the protection of the boreal woodland caribou an endangered species in Canada.


Ecojot joins the inspiring list profiled here at BusinessThatCares, of other businesses that have adopted the buy one give one business giving model like Toms Shoes, and Socks for Happy People, as well as triple bottom line companies, with their commitment to people, planet, and profit such as Better World Books.

Their products are both colorful and beautiful and can be purchased in stationary stores all over the US and Canada. You can follow their inspiring story on their blog: Jot and Dot.