Why you need to hire me! Aka My #HAPPO Post

In honor of HAPPO (Help a PR Pro Out) day on Twitter, you NEED to hire me because:

• I have a unique set of strategy consulting, marketing communication, corporate responsibility and creativity skills that will set your CSR/Sustainability programs ahead of the curve.
• I am extremely dedicated to CSR, Sustainability and Chicago.  Two years ago, I left Chicago to pursue an MBA focusing in CSR and communication at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.  My goal was to master cutting edge CSR and social innovation techniques and bring them back to the city I love, Chicago.

Check me out on LinkedIn, Twitter or leave a comment here.

Weekly 3: Topic - Philanthropy

Once a week, I will be posting three links about one specific topic in CSR.  

This week's topic is Philanthropy.  Specifically, I have been thinking quite a bit about how nonprofit social enterprises can be more effective in raising money.  Check out these articles for some interesting insights:

• Stanford Social Innovation Review: Grantmakers Can Do More Than Make Grants: One positive outcome of the decline in financial markets is that it might spur foundations to get more involved in program and mission related investments.
• The Power of a Case | Social Velocity: Nell Edgington makes a compelling case for why nonprofits should all have a "case for support" at the heart of every funding raising campaign. Although I do think that such a case should be shared with major donors in their entirety.
• Does Philanthropy Have a Place in Social Enterprise? | Social Entrepreneurship | Change.org: Nathaniel Whittemore comments on the Tactical Philanthropy track at this year's Social Capital Markets conference and discusses the historical debate over whether the phrase "social enterprise" should include both nonprofits and for-profits.

In five years, what (new & better) problem do you want to create?

"What problem are you trying to solve?" 

"What will success look like for this problem ten years down the line?"

Last night, I attended Chicago Green Drinks. The topic was "Premature 10th Anniversary: Looking Back on the Next 3 Years."  For those of you who don't know, Green Drinks is a monthly event sponsored by the Foresight Design Initiative.  Every month, they organize an event around a certain topic (ex: Social Enterprise, Wind Energy or Sustainable Food) and hold a speed-networking session before the event. I always enjoy the speakers but this session was different. This session focused on the future of Foresight Design Initiative. While some of it felt like I was crashing the third hour of a "Mission Planning Session" for a non-profit board, Peter Nicholson (Executive Director of the Foresight) was asking some very interesting questions.

Peter says he likes to start discussions with partners and clients by asking: "What problem are you trying to solve?" "What will success look like for you ten years down the line?" The really interesting part came when Peter asked the second question of himself. His answer was something like "I want to create new problems. I want people to say 'we have new problems because of Peter. He helped us solve our old problems and now we have new more evolved problems.'"

That made me think. Five years down the line, what new problem do I want to create? As a CSR practitioner, I want to create the problem of too much employee engagement.  I want companies to have CSR initiatives that are so engaging, so transparent and so measurably valuable that employees find new purpose from the initiatives and customers are inspired by these initiatives.  Employees and customers what are too engaged in what you are doing?  That seems like a nice problem to have.

What problem do you want to create five years down the line?

Looking at Toyota's Problems Through a CSR Lens

Corporate Social Responsibility is not a cure-all to avoid all risk.  Let’s get that out of the way. 

Yet, as I read the article in today’s New York Times Toyota’s Slow Awakening to a Deadly Problem, I saw more and more how Toyota’s failure is a failure of stakeholder engagement among many other failures.

Stakeholder Engagement is a key tenet of CSR. Stakeholder Engagement involves looking broadly at the groups that have an interest in your business and involving their input in the decision-making process.

Toyota did not have to go out and discover the interested parties.  Because Toyota is a loyal and trusted brand, the groups came to Toyota with their grievances directly. Yet throughout the process, Toyota did not seem to take them seriously.

1. The first stakeholder group that raised an issue for Toyota was customers complaining of stuck gas pedals. 
2. The second stakeholder group that approached Toyota was credible safety and advocacy non-profits. 
3. When the media, the third stakeholder group, gets involved it is often the final sign that an issue has reached the stage where it must be addressed before it spirals out of control.  
4. The fourth stakeholder group that got involved was the final straw.  The US government began proceedings that forced Toyota to look at this problem with the seriousness it required.

Through this whole situation, Toyota’s strategy seemed to be: ignore, deny, shift blame.

Toyota may have been trying to do their best to address the issues all along.  They may have taken the concerns seriously and worked to eliminate every other possible outcome except the floor mats.  But it doesn’t matter to most of the public what they did do, it only matters what they appeared to do.  First they appeared to ignore the complaints and even ignore customer deaths.  Then, it appeared that they took an “it’s not our problem” stance and blamed it on an user error (incompatible floor mats improperly installed).  Then, when well covered and high profile accidents where floor mats could not have been the cause were covered by national media, they appeared to close their ears and blindly stick to a position that was resulted in the death of their customers. 

It is easy for me to Monday morning quarterback this issue and to espouse what Toyota should have done.  I am more interested in the possible organizational and myopic strategy-based reasons why they did not. 

What do you think?

Coming Next: Some theories on why is Stakeholder Engagement so difficult for a company like Toyota?