Does the current economic downturn spell the end of corporate citizenship? Just the opposite, says a recent survey of the Center’s members. Half of the practitioners surveyed (out of 50 total) believe that instead of falling by the wayside as corporate budgets get slashed – corporate citizenship will instead become more critical to corporate reputation and business success. Read the rest of this entry »

A day after change swept through our political institutions, IBM CEO Sam Palmisano addressed the Council on Foreign Relations with a call for business and other institutions to connect to a larger global change agenda. “Our political leaders aren’t the only ones who’ve been handed a mandate for change,” Palmisano said. “Leaders of businesses and institutions everywhere confront a unique opportunity to transform the way the world works.” Read the rest of this entry »

We are very sad to report that Center founder and Director Emeritus Edmund M. Burke died Monday, Nov. 3, in Boston of complications from pneumonia. He was 80. Read the rest of this entry »

At the January 2008 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Bill Gates called for more examples of “creative capitalism” – ways of reaching markets where need does not necessarily result in economic demand.

The International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm), which supports the GAVI Alliance – (formerly the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization) – is an example of creative capitalism at work. This initiative, of which the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a supporter, brings together the public and private sectors to enhance the delivery of vaccination and immunization programs in 72 of the world’s poorest countries.

Using an innovative financing structure, the GAVI Alliance has been able to turn long-term commitments from donor governments into more immediate impacts by turning to an unlikely ally – the mainstream financial markets. Read the rest of this entry »

The market’s meltdown has left every category of stock mutual funds in the red this year, but one area that has held up better than most is socially responsible investing, according to the Wall Street Journal. As of Oct. 30, 15 out of 91 faith-based and secular socially responsible funds that invest in stocks had outperformed the Dow Jones Industrial Average benchmark, some by more than 10 percentage points, according to investment researcher Morningstar. “Social investors have long argued that enhanced analysis of environmental, social, and governance factors can help investors better manage the risk in their portfolios,” says David Wood, director of the Boston College Center’s Institute for Responsible Investment. “Extreme market volatility makes drawing specific conclusions about the effect of enhanced analysis difficult. But we do know that the current downturn in the market came about in part because of social issues – predatory lending, or misaligned pay incentives – that are fundamental to social investment analysis.” Read the Wall Street Journal article.