Baking Cause Into Your Company

Archive for September, 2010

Baking Cause Into Your Company

September 30th, 2010, by Sloane Berrent. 1 Comment »

Who Dat! How social entrepreneurs bring people together for a cause.

View more presentations from Sloane Berrent.

Recently, I was invited to speak at The Combine, a conference bringing together movers and shakers in creativity, community, culture, capital and code from across the country. Held in Bloomington, Indiana, I was especially excited to attend seeing as Indiana was one of only 7 U.S. states I’ve left to visit! But more than that, I love boutique and smaller conferences, it’s a great opportunity to really get to know people and interact and the rise of these smaller conferences in growing technology sectors is a great opportunity for additional exposure to that region. Other examples of these boutique conferences are TribeCon (where I spoke last year) and Big Omaha.

The title of my talk was: Who Dat! How social entrepreneurs bring people together for a cause. Here are the main highlights, and you can view the presentation on slideshare.

Know who it is that we’re talking about. Definition of a social entrepreneur: A mass recruiter of local change makers in society — a role model proving that citizens who channel their passion into action can do almost anything. – Ashoka
Historical Examples of Leading Social Entrepreneurs:
•  Susan B. Anthony (U.S.): Fought for Women’s Rights in the United States, including the right to control property and helped spearhead adoption of the 19th amendment.
•  Vinoba Bhave (India): Founder and leader of the Land Gift Movement, he caused the redistribution of more than 7,000,000 acres of land to aid India’s untouchables and landless.
•  Dr. Maria Montessori (Italy): Developed the Montessori approach to early childhood education.
•  Florence Nightingale (U.K.): Founder of modern nursing, she established the ﬁrst school for nurses and fought to improve hospital conditions.
•  Margaret Sanger (U.S.): Founder of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she led the movement for family planning efforts around the world.
•  John Muir (U.S.): Naturalist and conservationist, he established the National Park System and helped found The Sierra Club.
The most dangerous word in the English dictionary is “someday” – you have to make someday today. Start small, start anywhere to make things happen.
Always have a plan of attack. If you are looking to build a social enterprise or cause into your company, all of the pieces don’t have to be perfect, but you should have a plan and a reason for your nonprofit partnerships just like you would with for-profit partners.
Not everyone has to be an entrepreneur to make a change. Some people are intrapreneurs working within large organizations for change. Examples include Tide Loads of Hope and Disney CSR.
Entrepreneurs don’t let opportunities pass them by. But they don’t jump on every bandwagon either. You have to pick your battled.
Bake cause into your company as early as possible. The social gumbo will help build your company and also help strengten your commitments.
Integrate cause into your brand and listen to your shareholders. Ultimately, they have to support and endorse what you do. Every company has shareholders and influencers, engage them early to get feedback to any new program, campaign or longterm initiative you’re looking to launch.
Don’t keep it a secret! Share what you do and why. Transparency is more important than ever before.
Quanitfy your campaigns. Cause campaigns aren’t charity campaigns. They still should tie to the bottom line and track them as such.
Make the information easy to find. If people visit your website, can they find information about your cause-based campaigns or partnerships? Don’t make people dig to find the good you do.
Highlight your partners. Highlighting others helps highlight you. It’s that simple.
It’s easier to get started than you think. If you’re starting from zero, even a little bit will help. If you have a program in place or are looking to launch a new social entrepreneurial endeavor there are many resources to help you get your product, service, website out the door. Launch, analyze, build – then rinse and repeat.

If anyone has any questions or would like to contact me to speak at your conference, please drop me a line and I’d love to have a conversation with you. As a final note, I loved Bloomington, that place is amazing! I can’t wait to go back.

Top Influencers From Clinton Global Initiative (One Guess Who’s On The List?!)

September 29th, 2010, by Sloane Berrent. 4 Comments »

When I attended the Clinton Global Initiative last week, I told all of my friends (online and off) that it was a dream come true for me. On my life bucket list was the World Economic Forum and the Clinton Global Initiative. The idea that I got to attend both while I’m 30 is just remarkable to me.

While at CGI last week, I operated very differently than I do at a lot of conferences. What I mean by that is that while I did network and connect with people, I was very focused on sharing and telling stories.

So when I was there, I decided that while I’m not a full-time journalist, I wanted to be the best version I could using the skills that I have. I thought it would be valuable to live tweet most of CGI because I know for many people in circle and network, they would love to attend, and soak in the information like I did. But most people CAN’T be there, for a variety of reasons.

Something I’ve learned from my time spent volunteering in developing countries and year of travel is that people love to share in the experience. So blogging and taking photos and videos, using Facebook and Twitter, all of these online tools allow many who are just as deserving (if not more so) to be able to go, see and attend events I’m at, simply can’t.

That’s where sharing the experience comes into play. By live-tweeting CGI, I received scores of messages from people saying simply “THANK YOU.” Thank you for sharing the information presented there to us. Yes, CGI had a simulcast, but we all know that for most people watching a video all day while they are at work is not feasible. Pulling quotes and stats from speakers and sharing them in 120 character bites (less than 140 so they could be retweeted and shared further) is a great way to spread the CGI mission – and indeed the mission of any conference or closed-invite event.

My simple JOY in sharing all of those messages with you last week just got even better! Waggener Edstrom, one of the largest and most well-known communications firms in the world, named me one of the top 10 influencer on Twitter during CGI. Which, when you look at the list is kind of ridiculous. I mean the company I’m keeping is large organizations like Ashoka and Echoing Green and then the likes of John Wood and Lance Armstrong.

And then there is me. @sloane.

But when I think about it, good for the little guy. Good for me, and good for Twitter and my online community for being interested enough to share and retweet the content I provided last week. It’s like the biggest high-five! So this is really a thank you to my online communities for sharing the messages from last week and caring enough to follow along.

I think that is what President Clinton meant when he asked, “How can each person and each organization leverage their core strengths in the most effective way, turning good intentions into real changes?”

From the Waggener Edstrom blog, Innovation Conversations:

If you were following the CGI Twitter dialogue last week, you know there was A LOT of content being shared and a lot of messages competing for air time. I thought it would be interesting to use twendz pro™ to see who were the most influential people in the Twittersphere.

Below are the top 10 Twitter influencers* from CGI gleaned from twendz pro™, who were seen to have a strong voice in their respective areas of influence. Keep in mind, a person’s influence ranking changes day to day, given the fluidity of the Twitter landscape. These people were the most engaged influencers during the CGI because not only did they have a high number of followers, they were actively engaged in questions, replies, shared links, and constantly used hashtags in their tweets. Most of these influencers were retweeted at a high volume, demonstrating their broad reach.

CGI’s Top Ten Twitter Influencers

@changemakers (307,137 followers)- Ashoka Changemakers is a global online community of action that connects people to share ideas, inspire and mentor each other, and find and support the best ideas in social innovation.
@ClintonTweet (11,282 followers)- The host of last week’s events, the Clinton Foundation addresses urgent global problems through collaboration with the private sector, NGOs and other government entities. CGI gathers world leaders annually to turn ideas into action.
@echoinggreen (330,900 followers)- Echoing Green is a global nonprofit that provides seed funding and technical assistance to emerging social entrepreneurs with ideas for social change.
@johnwoodRTR (317,672 followers)- John Wood is the Founder of Room to Read and author of ‘Leaving Microsoft to Change the World.’
@witnessorg (273,673 followers)- WITNESS is a human rights organization that provides training and support to local groups to use video in their human rights advocacy campaigns.
@lancearmstrong (2,654,892 followers) – This iconic, 7-time Tour de France winner and full time cancer fighter is the spokesperson for LIVESTRONG.
@sloane (7,721 followers)- A KIVA fellow, Sloane Berrent is a cause-based marketing and social branding consultant who blogs at The Causemopolitan.
@VanJones68 (6,217 followers) – Van Jones is the award-winning pioneer in human rights and the clean-energy economy. He wrote the NYTimes bestseller: Green Collar Economy.
@WomenforWomen (4,733 followers) – WomenforWomen International helps women survivors of war rebuild their lives. Zainab Salbi is the ever-inspiring Founder and CEO.
@govgranholm (16,325 followers)- Jennifer Granholm is the Canadian-born American Governor of Michigan (D).

I’ve also created a Twitter list with all of the amazing people above that you can follow HERE.

Photo courtesy of Taylor Davidson, Founder of Narratively.

The Journey Of A Foster Child Is Not An Easy One

September 23rd, 2010, by Sloane Berrent. 4 Comments »

Today is the final #CauseItsSummer guest post and as such we’re doing a double header! Once a week this summer, The Causemopolitan has featured a guest post that will inspire you right up out of your seat to get involved and give back in a special series called Cause It’s Summer. Featured bloggers will be sharing their own reflections and stories, tips and resources, and perspective on philanthropy, social entrepreneurship and their own cause-filled life. This week welcome Stephanie Schneider, who works at X PRIZE by day and blogs at Paisley Petunia at night. Stephanie has one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know and I’m honored for her to share her personal experience working with foster kids here on The Causemopolitan.

*****

Check out www.fosterhood.tumblr.com to follow one mom's journey through foster care

Imagine being a young child and suddenly taken from the only home that you have ever known and separated from every familiar face in your life? Frightening, no?!

The journey of a foster child is not an easy one.

And neither is that of the foster parent. But I cannot think of a better, more giving role. Foster parents open their own homes and hearts to provide a temporary, safe haven for children in crisis.

In 2004, I became acquainted with the foster care system at my first bona-fide real world job. Fresh out of college, I was bright eyed, naïve and hopeful. I landed at Southern California Foster Family & Adoption Agency in Los Angeles, CA. The agency is dedicated to helping abused and neglected children find secure, stable, nurturing homes to live in, until such time as they are reunited with their birth families, are adopted or become independent adults.

My first month on the job, I attended the foster parent orientation classes that are required to become a certified foster home. Requirements vary by state, but here are some of the qualifications to be a foster parent:

You must be 25 years of age
You need to have a safe, clean home with room for a child(ren) and their belongings
No one in your home, or caring for the child, may have a criminal record
You must be open to a team approach for the care of the placed children, cooperating fully with agency, county personnel and birth families

Over the next two years, I learned so much about the bureaucracy of the foster care system in America. My thoughts on how to improve this decaying, failing system are too long for this post. But along with these challenges, I witnessed the joy in reuniting a child with their parents or extended family (when it was the best thing for the child). I participated in keeping adoptable sibling sets together by matching them with new parents that were waiting patiently to have a family. The creation of new families through adoption is a beautiful thing. We watched as children that had been neglected or abused flourished from the nurturing care of a foster/adoptive parent. The news tends to only report on the horror stories in the foster care system. But I wish they would highlight more stories about the heroes of foster care – foster parents (and social workers) that are so giving of their love, patience and time.

Now, I know that becoming a foster parent is a life changing decision and many of you reading this might not be in a position to fit the requirements above at this time. However, your local foster family agency can always use your help:
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Spread The Good! Welcome To #SocialGood Day

September 23rd, 2010, by Sloane Berrent. No Comments »

Welcome to Social Good Day. Mashable and (Red) are the presenting sponsors of today’s efforts to use social media to raise awareness and brainstorm solutions for the issues that we care about to tackle the world’s biggest problems. Why a Social Good Day? It’s the opportunity for us all to use social media to have real conversations while sharing and learning from each other.

How To Join #SocialGood Day

Sign up to attend or organize your own Social Good Day meetup for today’s Mashable’s Meetup Everywhere. Over 1,668 events are planned in over 100 countries with over 16,000 people.
Join (RED) on Facebook and Twitter to share your ideas on how to help fight AIDS in Africa using social media.
Tweet about what your solution is, using the #socialgood hashtag. Write a blog post and share it.
Post to Facebook about what you or your company is doing.
Record a video about your solution and upload to YouTube with #socialgood tag
Get inspired by watching the 30-minute Spike Jonze and Lance Bangs documentary ‘The Lazarus Effect’ on YouTube. Presented by (RED) and HBO the film follows the story of HIV positive people in Africa who in as few as 40 days undergo a remarkable transformation thanks to access to treatment.

Suggestions of Things To Discuss

What solutions do you think can express the world challenges, such as the UN’s Millennium Development Goals?
What’s the most effective channel to spread awareness and generate money for causes: Twitter? Facebook? YouTube?
How can you use geo-location apps like FourSquare and Gowalla for causes?
Which social causes are getting it right and why?
How would you use social media to spread awareness causes you care most about?

Facts and Resources to Consider:

33 million people in the world have AIDS. 22 million live in Africa.
Every day 3,800 people die in sub-Saharan Africa from AIDS – a preventable and treatable disease.
It costs just 40 cents a day for the life-saving medicine someone living with HIV/AIDS in Africa needs to help them live a healthy and productive life.

If nothing else, you can start here by taking the following message and customizing it for yourself and posting it to your Twitter and Facebook:

#SocialGood Day @joinred @mashable my idea for (RED) is…

So remember, whether you talk, tweet, meetup, post or some combination of all of the above, your contribution matters. At the end of the day, take a moment to reflect how you FEEL. Did you do something today to be proud of, to make today count? Here’s one way to think about it, maybe you did a little something extra today that you don’t usually do. This would be a move to what I call “cause-filled living.” It’s the movement to build cause into your every day life and make those “someday” intentions activities for today.

Mark your calendars now for October 23, 2010. It’s the 20^th anniversary of Make A Difference Day the largest national day of community service. Held annually the fourth Saturday of October, Make A Difference Day is sponsored by USA WEEKEND and HandsOn Network. You can start getting involved today by spreading the word, planning a project and getting the resources you need by visiting the HandsOn Network website or by visiting their Facebook page.

This post was originally published on Halogen.tv

Giving Back: Green Eggs & Chocolate

September 23rd, 2010, by Sloane Berrent. No Comments »

Only two left! Once a week this summer, The Causemopolitan has featured a guest post that will inspire you right up out of your seat to get involved and give back in a special series called Cause It’s Summer. Featured bloggers will be sharing their own reflections and stories, tips and resources, and perspective on philanthropy, social entrepreneurship and their own cause-filled life. This week welcome Andrew Seely, creator and host of the chocolate web show, Melts In Your Pocket. Andrew knows all there is to know about chocolate and shares some of the greenest chocolate companies he knows. Chocolate to make the world a better place, that’s something I can take a bit out of!
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Maybe not so much the eggs part, but put green and chocolate together and you really have something. While I have run into actually green colored chocolate, there’s a Lotsa Matcha White Chocolate Bar from William Dean Chocolates (which I tasted when I was a tasting judge for the San Francisco International Chocolate Salon), it’s not so unusual for chocolate companies these days to be thinking about the environment and chocolate.

In many ways the chocolatiers who are making chocolate, not only care about finding the perfect cacao beans to eventually turn into mouthwatering treats, but they also care deeply about doing so in an environmentally conscious way. The ideas of sustainability and organics have become just as important as making sure there is a perfect balance between sugar and cacao.

Sloane was a guest on my web show Melts In Your Pocket a while back and she brought with her a Green & Blacks 85% dark chocolate bar, for the reason that it is a certified organic chocolate bar. You can watch her episode here and the second part here.

More and more chocolate companies are turning to organically sourced materials such as Dagoba Chocolates, who are embedding such values into their businesses, on top of being really great tasting chocolate.

One company who I think stands heads and above in not only making wonderful chocolate but also has an amazing attitude towards how they source their chocolate and how they give back to the communities from which they get their chocolate is TCHO.

TCHO (pronounced ch-oh), is a San Francisco based company that is best described as a tech startup that happens to make chocolate. I got the opportunity to visit their factory and sit down with their CCO (chief chocolate officer) and Co-Founder Timothy Childs. You can watch my interview with him here (and above). One of the things that we got to talk about was TCHO’s Source Program.

TCHO’s Source Program is more than meets the eye. Not only is the program focused on being very selective about where their cacao beans come from and how much they pay the farmers for their products. The program goes one further and is about giving back to the communities they purchase from.

Not just giving back money or water wells or clothes, but knowledge. Knowledge about the entire chocolate making process, essentially giving farmers the tools and skills to take their product (the beans) and go fully from bean to chocolate. Talk about full circle sustainability.
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