Last week, the U.S. Chamber hosted a jobs summit, and it couldn’t have been more timely.  We are still stuck with double digit unemployment in many parts of the country.  The Midwest continues to go through a wrenching transition.  The drilling moratorium is jeopardizing 140,000 jobs in the Gulf Coast region.  California is so broke that state employees are looking at minimum wages.  Not only do we have to replace the jobs that have been lost, but we also have to generate new jobs for the people coming into the workforce. 

For many communities the best thing companies can do is to help them jump-start their economies.  This made me wonder – do any companies have concerted CSR programs to promote entrepreneurship and help small and medium-sized businesses start-up, stay up, and grow up?

Interestingly enough, many new-economy companies create eco-systems around themselves.  Apple, eBay, Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, Google, Nintendo, Sony, and Yahoo are like aircraft carriers at the heart of armadas of smaller companies.   University towns also seem to be adept at spinning off these new economy eco-systems.  Witness the growth around Raleigh-Durham, Boston, and Austin. 

Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Chicago are older examples of this phenomenon from the industrial era.  In fact, one could argue that it was the social responsibility of Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, and Henry Frick that helped to save and transform Pittsburgh, even though their original businesses are unrecognizable.  While there are only 8,000 steel jobs left in Pittsburgh, the city is now host to over 33 institutions of higher education and incubator of many small new businesses courtesy of the generosity of private sector benefactors a few generations ago.

This is probably outside the realm of CSR as it is normally understood, but I’d be interested to know if other companies are exploring ways to create vital business eco-systems in their communities.

Speaking of CSR properly understood, there was a very interesting article in the July 19 Washington Post about the difference between BP and some of its counter-parts in the energy sector.  BP, Chrystia Freeland argued, tried to position itself as “Beyond Petroleum” and curry favor with enlightened consumers while it racked up an industry-leading number of safety violations.  Meanwhile, ExxonMobil, hardly a CSR darling, focused on improving its safety and reducing the environmental impacts of its operations.  Freeland argues that sexy branding exercises aren’t in the core competencies of the companies, and they actually may distract companies from staying focused.

We live in a cynical age, and the more that companies rush to embrace various social causes and wrap themselves in their halo, the more cynical these efforts may be perceived.  People already talk about “greenwashing” – the practice of trying to buy off criticism by supporting a cause philanthropically that may be contradicted by the company’s operating practices.   We could see a pendulum swing away from social engagement and back toward more emphasis on core business practices if these kind of social projects are seen as being inauthentic and hypocritical. 

I’ve always had a hostile reaction to people who put down corporate social projects, because I don’t think many critics have bothered to ask the companies why they do what they do, or really have a clear understanding of how the companies operate, but Freeland does raise some good points.  The most sustainable corporate projects are those which have inherent business logic to them, and projects that are a “stretch” may become PR traps down the road.

Which brings up the third note this week: focus.  The more companies decide to contribute to social development functions, the more we see movement toward concrete, specific issues where they can get measurable results. This focus moves away from general, multi-purpose, abstract programs where success is hard to define.  Companies are increasingly looking for relevance, authenticity, and specificity.  I don’t know if some of our nonprofit partners fully appreciate the implications of this trend, but it will shake up business-nonprofit relationships more and more.

Shameless Plug: For the last two years, the Global Corporate Citizenship conference has sold out.  This year’s conference, titled “Frontier Markets. Global Partnerships. Local Solutions.“, is scheduled for September 27-29, and promises to be THE public-private development conference of the year, as we build on the Clinton Global Initiative and UN General Assembly meetings to identify concrete projects and development opportunities.  Register to attend before this year sells out, too.