In a March 4 article, the Wall Street Journal noted that a growing number of business schools are working with companies to develop social responsibility and sustainability curricula. Then the article goes on to say that some students complain that jobs in the field are scarce.

The truth is that jobs that go by the label of “social responsibility manager” or “sustainability officer” may indeed be scarce (a lot of jobs are when you are dealing with 10% unemployment), but knowing about these issues is still important, isn’t it?

I’d be curious what you think students should know.  If it were up to me, these are some of the topics that I hope an advanced curriculum would cover.

First, I would start with the business case.  Too many companies complain that people trying to get into the CSR field don’t understand how it fits into the profit and loss statement.  How do ethical management practices help the firm make money and stay in business for the long-term? 

If students can’t answer that basic question, they shouldn’t even bother trying to go into business.

Second, I know this isn’t fashionable, but I would devote the next part of the curriculum to understanding the history of business and how we got to this point in terms of various attitudes toward business.  Why does it matter that big European businesses were originally grants from the crown, whereas American companies were mostly built bottom-up?  What do Catholicism, Protestantism or Bismarck’s social welfare state have to do with business conditions in modern Europe?  What is Islamic business practice?  How do the experiences of the Meiji restoration, the Open Door policy, and British imperial trade practices, affect Asian attitudes toward nationalism, capitalism, culture, and progress? 

Think it doesn’t matter? 

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[Editor's Note: See related post, 6 Ideas to Improve Humanitarian Assistance, Recovery and Development.]

As the BCLC team continues to gather information about the Chilean earthquake, the words “not again” keep repeating themselves.

Inés Pearce, who manages BCLC’s National Disaster Help Desk for Business (1-888-MY-BIZ-HELP) reports:

“More than 2 million were impacted by the 8.8-magnitude Chilean earthquake. The death toll has risen to 708, and the government is estimating 400,000 to 500,000 residences damaged. The capital of Santiago (200 miles away) lost electricity and basic services, including water and telephones.

“Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said two regional hospitals had suffered damage; some were evacuated. Other public institutions also were affected. A major bridge connecting northern and southern Chile was rendered inoperable, and the Santiago airport terminal was heavily damaged.

“Chilean television showed severely damaged buildings in Concepción (60 miles away with a population of 200,000), in coastal central Chile. Videos showed roads that were destroyed and impassable. Four field hospitals were being set up and tanker trucks full of fresh water began circulating in areas that had lost access to clean water within 24 hours after the earthquake.

“The 8.8 Chilean earthquake is 700 to 800 times stronger than the 7.0 Haiti earthquake on January 12 that killed more than 200,000 people and left a million homeless. Chile, however, has a history of major earthquakes and preparing for them. It helped that Chile’s quake was 21 miles deep versus Haiti’s shallow 8 miles, which increased shaking. This earthquake did strike a blow to one of Latin America’s most stable economies. Chile has received many offers of international aid, and will accept the help that it needs. Chilean President Bachelet said, ‘This will take a great effort from all sectors, public and private.’”

BCLC also is connecting with the Salvation Army, InterAction, Red Cross, Pan-American Development Foundation, the State Department, USAID, the American Chamber in Chile, the Association of American Chambers of Commerce in Latin America and other key organizations and will continue to monitor developments and provide updates as we get them.

The silver lining is that Chile has invested in resilience for the last 20 years. It has developed. At over $14,600 per capita, it is the wealthiest country in South America. It has invested in infrastructure and better designed buildings with higher quality building materials. All of these factors helped lessen the impact of a particularly severe earthquake.

The March 1 cover of Time magazine might just say it all: the Capital is frozen in a block of ice. 

A quick scan of the headlines builds on the impression that the federal government is paralyzed, nothing can be done because the political divides are too great, the country is going to hell in a handbasket, etcetera, etcetera, and etcetera. 

All of this might be great cause for concern inside the Beltway, but the rest of America seems to be going about its business, wanting to get things done.

And the truth is that there are different ways to get things done. It doesn’t have to be about adding more fuel to the fire of our budget deficit, as U.S. Chamber president and CEO Tom Donohue notes. But if you look at the federal budget, very little of it is truly flexible and discretionary.  Because entitlements constitute such a massive percentage of the federal budget, many government leaders are increasingly interested in exploring ways to work with the private sector and civil society organizations. Only 12% of the budget falls in the “other discretionary” category.  

That being said, $437 billion is nothing to sneeze at. This year, the Corporation for National and Community Service has $50 million to fund social innovation projects.   The Economic Development Administration has roughly $200 million for economic development projects, Housing and Urban Development has over $4 billion for “green” initiatives, and the Department of Education is supposed to distribute $48 billion to the states for early childhood, K-12, teacher support, and building renovation projects.

Meanwhile, many companies are also taking on community investment, long-term business development, philanthropy, and social innovation challenges, and trying to figure out how to stretch their dollars.  These challenges include:

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I am reading a great book called Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do and What It Says About Us by Ken Vanderbilt that underscores the importance of enlightened self-interest.

As opposed to where I grew up in rural Virginia, in D.C. everyone believes their individual right of way is more important and urgent than everyone else’s. However, if everyone tries to get to the same place at the same time, what happens? Traffic jams. Every day, all the time. It doesn’t take long to become obsessed with traffic in this town, or to blame “Maryland drivers” for all of our problems.

What Vanderbilt explains is that by going more slowly and spacing out merging traffic, the roads can actually bear more volume and traffic can go more smoothly. It may be counter-intuitive, but going more slowly can actually allow you to get to your destination more quickly. That is, if everyone understands the same principle. Enlightened self-interest requires everyone to be slightly inefficient in order for the system as a whole to be as efficient as possible. However, if a certain number of people don’t get the joke and crowd the merge lanes, traffic reaches a tipping point where it bogs down.

This principle doesn’t just apply to traffic. Over the weekend, The New York Times published an article about how Goldman Sachs pushed AIG to the wall. As clever business people who foresaw the financial crisis, Goldman’s traders secured their risk directly with AIG and indirectly through third parties like Societe Generale, and then naturally pushed to collect when the CDO market and other mortgage-backed securities markets collapsed as they had foreseen.

Working on the part of their investors, they pushed to collect as much as possible, just as everyone else pushed to do the same. This kind of sharp deal-making by Goldman traders contributed to AIG having to turn to the federal government for upward of $180 billion in assistance, and now Goldman as a company is currently under investigation by the SEC for the role that they played in AIG’s collapse.

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During the State of the Union address, President Obama took aim at the problem of trust. Interestingly, trust-building is one of the biggest priorities for corporate citizens right now, too.

If you track any of the major polling operations that evaluate trust metrics — Gallup, Harris, Edelman, Rasmussen, etc. — you will find a remarkable consistency in how Americans evaluate different institutions and functions, although the specific weights and values may vary.

Generally speaking, Congress rates at the low end of the trust totem pole, followed by lawyers, the mainstream media, and big business. On the other end, Americans tend to trust the military, faith-based leaders, nonprofit leaders, small business owners, teachers, doctors, firemen, and other emergency responders.

Another interesting element is that while people don’t like Congress, the media, or big business in general, they really like their specific member of Congress, their favorite television channels, and their favorite stores and brands. What we also find is that authority figures seem to have lost their credibility.

In a Rasmussen poll taken right after the State of the Union address, just 27% of respondents believed the president’s statement that the government had put 2 million people back to work. Likewise, according to Edelman’s annual trust survey, the best spokesperson for a company often is not the CEO, but someone who is perceived as a peer or somebody “like me.”

We have become so accustomed to spin that we almost automatically discount what public spokespeople say. In a way we have lost something very precious, which also underscores the fact that we need to develop a new management science. We need to learn how to manage in order to build up trust.

The people we tend to trust highly have jobs that are seen to clearly benefit others. We recognize that our armed forces personnel put their lives on the line for us. By definition, teachers and doctors are committed to improving people’s lives. Firemen rush in to harm’s way. Their social contributions are obvious and easily understood.

What can we learn about what people don’t like?

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At the time of this writing, the business community has already raised over $106 million in the span of less than ten days in response to the earthquake in Haiti.  This does not include the role the networks or radio stations or online community have played in raising millions more from individuals through telethons, text or click donations.  It is truly amazing what companies can do.  And yet…

And yet, if you really want to upset someone in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) field, all you have to do is equate CSR with philanthropy.   What we have seen so far is a very human reaction from the companies.  Who could not be deeply moved by the images of people trapped under piles of rubble, loved ones sobbing helplessly nearby and yet so far away? 

But there are systemic things that the private sector can do that may be equally humanitarian, but not nearly as dramatic.  For example, we are hearing about bottlenecks at the airport.  

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The Haitian disaster has captured the sympathies of corporate America. Companies mobilized over $60 million in just three days — and now, one week later, $83 million+ has been pledged (See our announcement today on CNBC).

By way of comparison, most companies held off until almost a week had gone by after the Southeast Asia earthquake and tsunami in late 2004. By the time we are done, the Haiti corporate response will certainly place in the top five responses by the private sector to an international disaster. 

But where are we going with this process? We know that Haiti was the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere before the earthquake. We know that it was voted one of the 10 most corrupt places in the world, a hot spot for tropical diseases, with horrible housing and worse health care. 

Now we have reports that up to 100,000 have been killed and up to 1 million are homeless or have some kind of significant housing damage. We’ve also learned that the Haitian presidential palace was damaged, and that the earthquake has severely affected Haiti’s government and leadership class.

In addition, the top two UN officials on the island were killed — this is one of the worst disasters for the UN in history.

I am afraid that the crystallizing images of this disaster will be the dead buried in the rubble, the wounded caked with dust, the supplies bottlenecked at the airport, or the looting and violence that desperate people often resort to in the aftermaths of disasters.

I know many of you will be under huge pressure to make decisions, make large gifts, and then face the expectation for immediate results. Please tell your stakeholders that they call these kinds of situations “disasters” for a reason.

However, the key is not how much money we give, but whether we make intelligent decisions about what we are going to do moving forward. 

Herewith are a few ideas for consideration: Read more…

There is a quasi-myth on Wall Street that the first five days of trading set the pattern for the year. If this is the case in the public-private partnership space, then this year is going to build on and develop the themes from last year: the role of business in job creation and urban revitalization, social entrepreneurship, and resilience in the face of a near-crippling economic recession that spanned the globe.

One of the central agencies at the heart of this outreach is Housing and Urban Development (HUD). HUD is led by Shaun Donovan and under his leadership it has already changed several ways that it does business.

Secretary Donovan, in addition to learning in one of the ultimate difficult environments as head of New York’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, had previous experience in the private sector and the Clinton Administration, and his varied background shows.

HUD was given $13.61 billion under the Recovery Act. While it has quickly allocated funds to address homelessness, urban poverty, and the creation of green jobs, the agency is also exploring innovative approaches to these issues and continuing to solicit ideas. Check out HUD’s website for more details.

HUD also joined the Department of Transportation and Environmental Protection Agency to create the Partnership for Sustainable Communities last year.

Now, Secretary Donovan is co-chairing a working group on Long-Term Disaster Recovery with DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, and exploring ways to re-shape how the federal government helps communities recover long after the glare of the media lights has faded.

As if that were not enough, HUD is also engaged in comparing notes with its counterparts about the rapid urbanization that is taking place around the world and will participate in the World Urban Forum in Rio in March.

This past week, I think we had four different interactions with HUD — either directly or indirectly — by working on these projects.

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Happy New Year!  In the spirit of the season, herewith are some potential New Years Resolutions for CSR professionals:

1.  Position your business to be part of the solution.  There are so many issues affecting business and society relations today – the economic crisis, bail-outs, climate change, NIMBY, globalization, education, wellness, infrastructure…No one really has the luxury to sit on the sidelines anymore.  Resolve to do what you can to help your business be a force for positive change.

2.  Ask not what your company can do for you, but what you can do for your company.  Many times, we complain about scarce resources and having to do more with less.  This year, turn this equation on its head and figure out how you can contribute more to the company.  Make yourself indispensable.  Align everything you do with your company’s identity, goals, and business.  Then see what your company does for you.

3.  Take stock of the trees AND the forest.  Do a stakeholder map.  Understand your business eco-system.  Who are the biggest influencers on your customers or investors?  What are the biggest concerns of your regulators?  What do your neighbors think of you?  What constituencies are your competitors addressing?  Are there under-served constituencies that might benefit from your core competencies? 

4.  Find out the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.  Ask your marketers what people like about your company, but also “bing” or “google” your company and the suffix “sucks” and see what comes up.  Use the good news to design programs that reinforce your positive qualities in the minds of your stakeholders, but also don’t be afraid to find out what people criticize you for so that you know what problems you need to address.

5.  Speak truth to power.  Just as you don’t know everything your CFO is doing or what the line manager in Poughkeepsie is dealing with, you have to assume they don’t know or see everything you do, either.  Many times, CSR leaders are some of the best informed people in their company about external threats and opportunities.  Don’t be afraid to share what you know.  You will help your fellow managers make better decisions.

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If you have not seen Avatar, stop reading and go see it.  It’s that good.  If you are like my wife and me, you don’t go to the movie theater anymore unless they are featuring a spectacle.  Believe me, this movie is a spectacle.  So consider this opening paragraph your spoiler alert.

Good.  Now that the last few folks who haven’t seen the movie have left, let’s get serious.  If you are into corporate citizenship, then wasn’t this movie a poke in the eye? 

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