It’s conference season and corporate responsibility professionals from across the country are convening under the auspices of a number of CSR-related topics and themes.  As leaders in CSR strategy and social innovation, Mission Measurement staff leads workshops, serves on panels and participates in conversations about the next generation of corporate social responsibility and impact measurement in the context of CSR.  Over the past month, our team has take part the following events:

• Business Civic Leadership Center (BCLC) Global Corporate Citizenship Conference (October 1-2, US Chamber of Commerce, Washington, DC)

• Corporate Responsibility Officer (CRO) Summit (October 6-7, Union League, Chicago)

• Innovating Social Change (SIC) Conference (October 14, Kellogg School of Management, Chicago)

While each conference focuses on a specific angle within the CSR universe, there are a number of themes that have been common across this year’s conference circuit to-date.  Below, our corporate team shares highlights from this first round of conferences. 

• Corporate involvement in social change is paramount: As companies, governments and NGOs come to terms with unresolved social issues and the ongoing economic situation, there is broad recognition that commercial sector engagement is the most promising path to social change.  Such was the message from many speakers including Millennium Challenge Corporation Acting CEO Darius Mans at BCLC.  As stated by Ambassador Elizabeth Frawley Bagley at the same event, “The problems we face today will not be solved by governments alone.  They will be solved by partnerships.”

• NGOs and government entities are learning to leverage businesses’ core competencies to generate social change more effectively and sustainably. At BCLC, leadership from both PEPFAR and Cargill emphasized the need to move beyond simple financial contributions or matching funds to a strategic deployment of businesses’ assets, talents, thought capital, connections, etc.  as the most effective and sustainable way to engage the private sector.  At SIC, Jacqueline Novogratz and Nancy Barry, founders of Acumen Fund and Enterprise Solutions for Poverty, respectively, each recounted their application of business strategy and judgment to drive significant improvement individual human dignity and social status.

• From corporations’ point of view, social investments are not just that – investments with an expected ROI.  The days of pure philanthropy are waning.  At SIC,  Coca Cola Enterprises CEO John Brock described the significant undertaking that he and other senior leaders in his organization have made to create a robust and cohesive corporate responsibility strategy that reduces costs and deeply engages employee. IBM’s Stan Litow echoed this sentiment the CRO Summit, describing his company’s strategy to train its next generation of corporate leaders through involvement in emerging markets.  BCLC panelists from Intel, CISCO, Manpower and other companies explained how their investment in social innovations and public-private partnerships have driven business outcomes including cost savings, talent development and market entry opportunities.

• Overall, the social impact community appears to have developed a new level of comfort with the concept that social change and commercial opportunity need not be disjointed.  “As it turns out, altruism and self interest are not contradictory,” said Greg Lebedev, Senior Advisor to the President, US Chamber of Commerce at the BCLC conference.

Stayed tuned for a report from this year’s Business for Social Responsibility Conference in San Francisco and Net Impact Conference in Ithaca, NY.