Britta Durtsche

One topic that comes up often in CSR discussions is social intrapreneurship (in fact, it’s something I’ve written about previously on The Changebase).

Lots of people want to do CSR work, but not everyone is lucky enough to be in the right place, at the right time to land that perfect CSR job.

Thankfully that doesn’t mean that you can’t still make an impact at work.

I recently sat down with Britta Durtsche, a true social intrapreneur who found her CSR calling in a most unexpected way.

Interestingly, Britta never expected she’d work at a big company like Best Buy.

A self-proclaimed “anti-corporate” college student who’d been active in causes like sustainable clothing and social enterprise, Britta never guessed that an internship with the consumer electronics giant would have such an impact on her professional career. But it did.

In 2004 as an undergraduate student at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, Britta decided to “test the waters of a corporate environment” by accepting an internship with Best Buy. By the end of the summer, she says, she was hooked on the company’s culture and energy.

After graduation Britta joined Best Buy as a Demand Planning Analyst in the Marketing group, and even though she spent most of her time in spreadsheets and forecasts, she loved it.

Soon after starting, Britta heard about a new group being formed at headquarters by a fellow employee named Hamlin Metzger. The goal was to get Best Buy employees engaged and active in an internal movement to integrate sustainability into their everyday work routines. Hamlin was looking for help, and Britta jumped at the chance to get involved. Soon after, in 2006 the Best Buy Social Responsibility (BBSR) team was launched.

From working with Facilities to improve recycling programs, to hosting a company-wide energy-themed film festival, Britta and the BBSR team worked hard to create buzz and generate excitement internally. In addition to these highly-visible initiatives, the BBSR team also hosted smaller informational meetings to provide employees the chance to learn more about how they could personally get involved.

And the most amazing part? Britta, Hamlin and their colleagues accomplished all of this in addition to their regular day jobs. In fact, according to Britta, it really just started as “little grassroots things I could take on in addition to my role” in Demand Planning.

Today, more than 200 employees are part of the BBSR team and it seems inevitable that this number will grow with time.

Britta attributes the program’s success to the fact that the BBSR team taps into employees’ personal interests and allows them to “bring their hearts” to work – even if their jobs aren’t directly related to corporate social responsibility.

The other crucial success factor, Britta says, was engaging Best Buy’s senior leadership every step of the way. Through personal, one-on-one outreach with VP’s and other leaders, Britta and the team secured buy-in from key influencers throughout the company – a strategy she believes helped to “carry the legitimacy” of the BBSR team’s efforts and model the way for others to join in.

Although she has since left Best Buy and the BBSR team, Britta has continued to work with social intrapreneurs who want to identify ways to bring sustainability into their workplaces and schools. Today Britta serves as the Impact Programs Manager at Net Impact, where she provides resources, tools and support for professionals and students who want to make a difference in their organizations.

For many Net Impact members and recent MBA graduates, working in sustainability or CSR is an important goal. Often, however, those jobs are tough to find and can be very competitive.

Nonetheless, Britta’s story reminds us that we don’t need “CSR” in our job title to make an impact at work. By finding a company she loved; volunteering to help with an issue she cared about; and engaging with employees at every level, Britta was able to meaningfully participate in and help guide Best Buy’s sustainability journey.

Clearly Britta’s story serves as a great example of finding ways to contribute to your company’s sustainability goals, even when you’re not working in the CSR team. But why tell her story now?

As you may know, Net Impact’s terrific annual CSR conference is taking place October 28^th through the 30^th at University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and I want to encourage everyone to attend.

This year’s theme is “2020: Vision for a Sustainable Decade” and, given Net Impact’s own interest in social intrapreneurship, I have a hunch it’ll be a great place to learn more about how to get involved in your own company’s CSR journey.

They’re still announcing speakers and sessions, but trust me: the networking is great, the energy is contagious, and the learning is invigorating.

And the best part? For another week you can take advantage of early registration! So: what are you waiting for?

How many of you have heard of Fair Trade? I’d imagine many of you have.

But how many could actually define it, or discuss it, or even promote it? My guess is not as many.

That was the case for me until recently. Recognizing that I’d heard a lot about Fair Trade but that I couldn’t actually talk about it at length with anyone, I felt the need for some information and education.

Enter my local Net Impact chapter and the event they hosted this week featuring Rodney North, self-proclaimed “Answer Man” from Equal Exchange.

Equal Exchange is a 24 year-old organization started by three guys trying to answer a question: “What if food could be traded in a way that is honest and fair, a way that empowers both farmers and consumers?”

As the founders saw it, there were three key problems they felt needed to be addressed:

1. Chronic, generational poverty amongst the tropical farming population, especially coffee farmers. Interestingly, they noted that while coffee farmers kept getting poorer and poorer, the industrialized nations that drank the coffee kept getting richer and richer.
2. Exploitative and undignified working conditions in the U.S., which they felt warranted the creation of a new democratic and cooperative business model.
3. Uninformed and disempowered consumers that were unaware of the environmental and social problems present in various production supply chains and marketplace systems.

With all of this in mind, Equal Exchange set out to create an organization that would tackle these three crucial issues.

Today, Equal Exchange sources fair trade coffee, tea, chocolate, bananas, nuts and berries from farmer-owned cooperatives in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the United States. In their own words:

At Equal Exchange, we’ve created a different path to the market – one that brings farmers closer to you, and delivers more of your dollars to their communities. We do this by partnering with small-scale farmer co-ops that are democratically organized, which means they make decisions on their terms. Through this model, we believe food can become a delicious and powerful tool for creating Big Change for small farmers, their families and communities.

According to Rodney and the Equal Exchange website, Fair Trade encompasses a number of practices and ideals meant to provide adequate protection and support to growers, as well as increased assurance and certification for consumers. Some of these include:

• Direct purchasing from the farmer cooperatives themselves – ie: no middlemen
• Agreed-upon floor pricing for commodities so that even in times of financial crisis, farmers earn a living wage
• An extension of credit by Equal Exchange and other importers so that farmers may invest in new resources and technology to grow a higher quality product
• A fee paid by importers and wholesalers to cover the costs associated with Fair Trade certification
• A seal attached to each and every product ensuring certified status to the consumer.

As Rodney put it so cleverly: “We don’t teach a man to fish. We just stop stealing from him.”

And whether it’s through the fair prices they pay farmers, the kind of cooperative organization they’ve created, or the partnerships they’ve built with consumer and faith-based organizations, it’s clear that Equal Exchange is pushing forward with its mission of creating a “more equitable, democratic and sustainable world”.

As the talk wound down, Rodney touched on a couple of points that I thought were worth sharing.

When asked about Equal Exchange’s goals for the future, Rodney said that the organization’s explicit purpose is to be an example for others to follow. As an organization, Equal Exchange can only buy so much coffee itself! So its goal is to create a model that others can emulate. And, he said, the one good thing about our economic system is that organizations copy models that work.

He pointed to McDonald’s, Dunkin Donuts and Ben & Jerry’s as examples of companies that have gotten into using Fair Trade products. While most would argue their intentions are purely based on maintaining or growing market share, Rodney still sees this as a success – because regardless of their intentions, they’re still supporting Fair Trade principles and practices.

Finally, and I thought very insightfully, someone brought up the topic of the “Local Food” movement – that is, the idea of eating locally to promote more sustainable agriculture and food production.

“How does Fair Trade,” the attendee asked, “align with or diverge from the goals of eating locally?”

After admitting that the idea of eating locally can be problematic for Fair Trade proponents, Rodney said the best Equal Exchange can do is provide information and education to consumers looking to learn more. He also pointed out that some products – like coffee, for instance – just can’t be sourced locally.

So, while a neighborhood coffee shop might want to serve sustainably-produced beans, their best bet is to stick with fairly-traded, overseas products versus anything artificially produced closer to home.

All in all, a terrific night of learning, conversation, and food for thought (no pun intended). I encourage you, the next time you’re wandering the grocery aisles, to think about where your bananas or nuts or chocolate came from.

By being thoughtful and educating ourselves about the origins of our food and the people who produce it, we can go a long way in supporting the important mission of organizations like Equal Exchange.

Happy grocery shopping!

In the grand scheme of things, Corporate Social Responsibility is still an emerging field, which means that everything – from general strategy to best practices – is still being solidified.

One of the questions that is still debated quite often in the CSR community concerns the “business case” for this kind of work.

In a world where business decisions need to be justified through sound reasoning and quantitative measurements, it can be tough to explain why “doing good” is important.

I’ve tried to tackle this question in past posts, and the fact that I’m bringing it up again I think is proof that the jury’s still out on this one. Nonetheless, I did just hear one perspective on the topic that I thought was worth sharing with you.

Bob Willard is a sustainability author whose “claim to fame” (as he put it) is the quantification of the bottom-line benefits that companies can enjoy through CSR. He recently presented his ideas on the value of CSR as part of a Net Impact Issues-in-Depth call that I was lucky enough to listen to.

Bob started by laying out his general framework for the case for CSR, otherwise known as The 3 R’s:

1. Risks
2. Responsibilities
3. Rewards

The first category, Risks, is pretty obvious and serves as the most direct justification for engaging in CSR. From managing regulatory changes to preparing for the potential depletion of certain natural resources, corporations must consider what risks they face and how CSR might help mitigate exposure to those risks.

The next category, Responsibilities, really speaks to the new wave of expectations surrounding corporate involvement in the community and the environment. Whether from consumers, the media, NGO’s or even employees, there is clearly pressure being put on companies to be active and engaged in society – with reputation, loyalty and credibility at stake.

Yet it was the third ‘R’ – Rewards – on which Bob focused. As Bob put it, “There are surprisingly big rewards for taking up responsibility expectations and mitigating risk”.

In fact, according to Bob’s calculations (which he called conservative), these rewards can be sizeable for both large corporations and small-to-medium businesses, who can expect to earn at least 38% and 66% more profit, respectively, through CSR programs.

Not surprisingly, the biggest area of CSR reward comes from the eco-efficiencies created in sustainability programs (ie: saving water, reducing waste, etc).

What comes next? Interestingly enough, the second biggest reward opportunity comes through employee engagement in CSR programs. Whether through reduced recruiting and attrition costs or increased employee productivity, the HR benefit of CSR is not to be overlooked.

Now, we all know anecdotally that CSR improves morale, reduces turnover, and generally leads to more satisfied employees. What’s cool about what Bob has done is that he’s actually put numbers behind these assertions and provided the calculations that prove these rewards.

Admittedly, I’ve never been great at statistics – but when Bob presented a regression analysis showing a correlation (R² = .57) between employee engagement and CSR activities, I just about swooned!

While I’m not going to repeat everything Bob presented, you can check out his website to see presentations and spreadsheets that show the numbers behind his ideas. In general, Bob’s overall point was that employee engagement drives business results (after all, happy employees beget productive employees) – and that CSR is one big way to dramatically improve the recruitment, retention and satisfaction of employees.

Thus, in essence, CSR leads to engaged employees which leads to increased returns for business. And voila - the business case for CSR in a nutshell!

As a job-seeker and future engaged employee, this assertion rings true for me. Nonetheless, if you’re still doubtful, I’ll leave you with some of Bob’s statistics as food for thought:

Recruiting

• 40% of MBA grads rated CSR as a an “extremely” or “very” important company reputation measure (Hill & Knowlton Jan 08)
• MBA grads will sacrifice an average of $13,700 in annual salary to work for a socially responsible company (2003 Stanford University study)

Retention

• 83% of employees in G7 countries say their company’s positive CSR reputation increases their loyalty (GlobeScan 2006)
• 57% of employees say their company’s CSR reputation is a factor in retaining them (Towers Perrin-ISR global survey 2007)

Productivity

• Fully engaged employees are 2.5 times more likely to exceed performance expectations than their “disengaged” colleagues (Hay Group website, May 2009).
• At Best Buy, a 2% increase in employee engagement at one of its electronics stores corresponds, on average, to a $100,000 annual rise in its sales (Business Week, “The Case for Optimism,” August 13, 2009).

So what do you think? Is employee engagement a compelling motivation for CSR at your company? Is this an argument that wins over senior company leaders? I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

When it comes to the crisis of Global Warming (what author and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman says should actually be called “Global Weirding”), things can get pretty overwhelming fast.

Animal extinction, water scarcity, rainforest destruction – these are all pretty heavy topics requiring big picture thinking and action.

And if world governments can’t even build consensus to take action, how can we as individuals ever expect to make a difference?

Well, I’m here to say: Don’t Get Discouraged.

Sure, many of these issues can only be solved through global coalitions that unite for a common purpose (and boy, does that sound like hard work!).

Nonetheless, it’s important to remember that even big problems can be helped through small “micro-actions”.

Take, for example, what happened just a few weeks ago at my own business school. The Boston University chapter of Net Impact organized something called “D.U.M.P. Week” (aka: Don’t Use More Plastic).

In essence, D.U.M.P. Week was about rallying the internal community to consider how their everyday choices – in this case, using plastic bottles – impact the world around them.

During each day of the promotion, members of the Net Impact board set up shop in the graduate student lounge to educate and connect with students around the topic of sustainability. Through tidbits and facts written on poster board, an informational video showing the impact that plastic has on the Earth, and fun contests and games, the chapter leaders were able to successfully and effectively get the student body engaged in sustainability in a very personal and on-the-ground way.

In addition to education, the organizers of D.U.M.P. Week asked students to consider signing a sustainability pledge that outlined a set of behaviors each student would agree to uphold. These included:

1. Power Down Computers
2. Bring Your Own Mug and Water Bottle
3. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
4. Think Before Your Print
5. Use Compact Fluorescent Bulbs
6. Turn Off the Lights
7. Take Shorter Showers
8. Carry a Reusable Shopping Bag
9. Walk More, Drive Less
10. Wash Laundry in Cold Water

In exchange for signing the pledge, each student received his or her very own reusable water bottle (not plastic!) to kick-start these new behaviors.

A Student Signs the Pledge

So why was D.U.M.P. Week so successful? In many ways, it serves as a real-life example of everything I’m learning in my marketing classes:

You can always grab people’s attention with big ideas, questions, even images. But until you tell consumers why it matters to them, you’re missing your opportunity to connect, engage and inspire action.

D.U.M.P. Week wasn’t just about scary doomsday scenarios or cold environmental terminology; it was about inspiring our community to connect, learn, and take action in easy and understandable ways.

As I waited in line to sign the pledge myself, I couldn’t help but feel excited by this small yet motivated demonstration of commitment by my fellow students (who, by the way, are still using their water bottles weeks later).

On their own, these behavior changes may seem like a drop in the bucket – but taken together they represent a collective, united plan of action that can and will have meaningful impact.

When it comes to sustainability, every bit (or micro-action) counts.

I encourage you to think about what micro-actions you could take to help move us toward a more sustainable planet.

And, if you’re looking for other examples of micro-change, check out Cindy Gallop and IfWeRanTheWorld.com. Cindy and her team (who I first learned about at The Feast) have created a crowd-sourcing platform for people to declare the actions (big and small) that they would take if they ran the world. Even better, the platform lets you share your idea with others and activate your network to get involved. Definitely worth checking out.

Is it an example of the powerful partnership that can be created between business and nonprofits?

Or is it simply about writing a check – and checking a box?

I mentioned in an earlier post on The Changebase that I recently attended the 2009 Net Impact Conference at Cornell University, and one of the panels I attended tackled this question.

The panel was called “The Evolution of Corporate Philanthropy: Achieving Greater Impact through Strategic Giving” – and moderator Mark Kramer, managing director at FSG Social Impact Advisors, immediately set the record straight regarding the changing role of corporate philanthropy over time.

His hypothesis is that in the last twenty years, the purpose of corporate philanthropy has evolved from mere existence (he actually used the word “irrelevance”) to creating shared value for a company, its nonprofit partners, and its community.

To prove this point, Mark enlisted the help of an impressive corporate philanthropy panel:

• Anne Bronson, director of US Corporate Citizenship at Accenture
• Jason McBriarty, senior manager of Worldwide Community Affairs at Levi Strauss (and a Boston University MBA!)
• Hasting Stewart, vice president at Shell Oil Company Foundation.

Here’s what I learned:

Question: Do you still run into the issue of people doubting whether philanthropy is an important part of business?

Jason from Levi’s started out by noting that his company is privately-owned with a history of philanthropic community support (a factor that I believe is crucially important when it comes to the successful adoption/implementation of sustainability and CSR programs). He noted that the company’s new CEO understands that even in bad times philanthropy is a core component of Levi Strauss’ business.

Anne from Accenture said that, in this tough economy, shareholders don’t always want to see large checks going out the door. To respond to this, she and her team have focused more on donations of employee time through skills-based volunteering – which, given the experience of the Accenture workforce – is certainly a valuable gift.

Question: How can philanthropy be used to drive business goals?

I thought this was an especially important question – as I learned this summer as a corporate philanthropy intern, “doing the right thing” will only get you so far.

In the end, it’s about proving that the corporate philanthropy program is aligned with the business objectives.

Hasting said that philanthropy often reinforces the work that his company does by enabling Shell to have a presence in local communities. For example, every city or town that hosts a Shell refinery also has a community advisory panel (managed by the Shell Foundation and made up of local leaders and city advocates) that meets quarterly to engage in dialogue and share feedback or concerns. Thus philanthropy serves as an entry point for Shell to connect with its local communities.

Jason acknowledged that Levi Strauss engages in philanthropy because it’s the right thing to do, but it also looks critically at how philanthropy can have an impact on the business. One area of focus for Levi’s is its network of over 600 suppliers. Through its Foundation, Levi Strauss is training suppliers and their employees on issues relating to human rights and labor conditions in factories. In this way, corporate philanthropy is another lever that Levi’s can pull to ensure that its business is successful and sustainable.

Question: What kinds of attitude changes have you seen taking place in regards to public/private partnerships?

Anne noted that in the past relationships between the for-profit and nonprofit sectors had been strained, and even antagonistic. But, she believed that partnerships among business, nonprofits and governments were growing in popularity – and that when you focus on opportunities to partner with, rather than fight against, other organizations you ultimately create even more value and impact.

Jason highlighted the recent launch of a new partnership with Goodwill as an example of the power that can come through partnerships.

After evaluating their supply chain, Levi’s found that the greatest use of energy in the lifecycle of their 501 jean is consumer washing of the product at home. This made the company realize that it needed to do a better job of educating its consumers regarding how to care for their jeans as well as what to do with them once they were no longer wanted. And thus the Goodwill partnership – and a new Levi’s care tag on the inside of all 501 jeans – was borne.

Question: Given our economy, how has your company’s outlook on philanthropy changed?

In general, all of the panelists agreed that they’ve seen cuts to their budgets and staff. But, they also all agreed that they’re not seeing an abandonment of philanthropy just because times are tough.

As one panelist put it, “philanthropy is about being in it for the long haul” – and companies can’t just leave their communities because the economy is struggling.

All panelists did agree that, beyond measurement, monetizing the impact of philanthropy is a huge challenge. Levi’s, for instance, looks at measuring impact through the “buzz” that their cause marketing campaigns create, while Accenture uses storytelling to demonstrate the impact of their community investments.

Perhaps the most powerful moment of the session came when one panelist asked why corporate philanthropy was being forced to prove financial returns to the business when other functions (like marketing) have always had dubious connections to ROI?

In the end, he said, we need to stop being “the barking dog” – that is, forcing a conversation about why philanthropy matters – and instead showcase the assets that philanthropy has to offer to the business.

I couldn’t agree more!

This past weekend over 2,400 MBA students, CSR professionals and social entrepreneurs congregated on the campus of Cornell University for the 2009 Net Impact Conference.

For those of you not “in the know,” Net Impact is an international network of people looking to use their business skills to create global social change.

I’ve been a member of Net Impact for a few years now, and I have to say that attending their annual conference is a must (if you’re not a member, I highly encourage you to join).

When I attended last year as a first year MBA, I remember feeling overwhelmed by all of the new ideas, terminology and opinions swirling around in the air. This time though, as a second year student, I felt much more grounded and less inundated, which made it possible to simply enjoy the opportunity to learn, connect with colleagues and friends, and share ideas around CSR and sustainability.

Perhaps because it’s the topic most on my brain these days, but a lot of the panels I attended were somehow related to careers in CSR. I went to a couple of especially terrific sessions that I just know the readers of The Changebase will enjoy, so I thought I’d share what I learned over the course of a couple of blog posts.

This post centers around one panel I attended called “Developing CSR Competencies”. Moderated by Chris Pinney, director of research and policy at Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship, this session highlighted recent research that BCCCC had just completed with the Hay Group, a global management consulting firm.

The research they did focused on the specific individual competencies that CSR directors need to have in order to be successful in their jobs. To add value to the report’s findings, the panel included three current CSR directors who were interviewed for the study:

• Dan Bross, Senior Director of Global Corporate Citizenship, Microsoft Corporation
• Valerie Smith, VP of Corporate Responsibility, Citigroup
• Dave Stangis, VP of Corporate Social Responsibility, Campbell Soup Company (follow Dave on Twitter here).

Chris opened up the panel by introducing a few important points which are worth repeating here:

• Each company does CSR differently – so the job functions of a CSR director will vary.
• Most CSR teams are incredibly small – for instance, the group at Campbell Soup is only 1 ½ people!
• Not surprisingly, therefore, these jobs are incredibly hard to come by – especially for folks who aren’t already internal employees at the company.

After this, he went on to outline the research findings. In general, 8 key competencies emerged as the “keys to success” for any CSR director.

Personal Maturity (aka: Humility): this basically comes down to your ability to achieve success through empowering others to be part of the process – and then letting them take the credit. All three panelists agreed letting other people shine (and thus staying out of the spotlight yourself) is an acceptable trade-off for seeing your program reach its milestones.

Optimistic Passion: this competency relates to your ability to get out of bed everyday feeling motivated about your work. It’s about being patient, resilient, and dedicated to making change. Perhaps the best part of the panel was when Dave from Campbell Soup strongly opposed this phrase ‘optimistic passion’ (two words that he did not believe described himself or his work). Yet the more he explained why he opposed the phrase, the more passionate he seemed!

Next up was Peripheral Vision and Systems Perspective: two traits that refer to your ability to understand how your work in CSR relates to various business units within your company as well as to society as a whole. Once you understand this, the next step is being able to translate these ideas to other stakeholders. Essentially, it’s how well you can see the forest through the trees – and then tell others about what that forest looks like.

After that was Visionary Thinking: a skill that forces you to look beyond that pile of “to-do’s” on your desk and think instead about how you can bring innovation and fresh ideas to your work.

Two other competencies that I particularly enjoyed were Collaborative Networking and Strategic Influencing: these attributes relate to how well you engage others in your work, ask for help when you need it, and get buy-in from key decision-makers. Dan from Microsoft brought up a particularly interesting point about the role of trust in strategic influence – without instilling in your colleagues the feeling that they can trust you, you’ll never be able to persuade them to help you.

Finally, and perhaps most important, you need to be a Change Driver: with such small teams and such big jobs, you must be the one leading the charge and taking initiative to get results.

I found all of these traits to be incredibly interesting – and truthfully a little daunting.

To be a really good CSR director, it turns out you have to be a bit of a superhero!

But the more I heard the panelists speak about their experiences, the more excited I felt about the opportunity to one day join their ranks.

At the end of the session there was still one final question that I felt needed to be answered:

With all of this emphasis on individual competencies, I wondered what it was about the panelists’ specific organizations that perhaps nurtured their ability to be successful in their jobs?

Was it simply a case of just having these competencies and jumping in with both feet? Or did their company’s culture, values or even governance structure have something to do with their success?

Interestingly, the panelists seemed to agree that in fact it’s the individual’s ability to bring these skills to the table that sets them apart. While some organizations may have value systems or missions that make it easier to succeed, the panelists believed that true success in these positions is based on your ability to think big yet stay grounded, to include various stakeholders in a collaborative process, and to strategically enlist the help of champions to promote and evangelize your cause.

Overall it was an incredibly valuable afternoon and I learned a lot. Thank you Chris, Dan, Valerie and Dave for sharing your insights with us!

Stay tuned to future posts on The Changebase to hear more about what I learned at Net Impact 2009…

In the meantime, ask yourself: what are you doing right now to develop each of these competencies yourself?