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In 2007 Booz Allen Hamilton set out to help small nonprofits in the Washington, D.C. area gain access to expert advice and guidance on management and fundraising that was otherwise unattainable for them due to cost. In the four years since, the Booz Allen Hamilton Nonprofit Development Conference Series has grown exponentially and now successfully serves more than 400 unique nonprofit organizations with top tier guest speakers from around the metropolitan area who provide the sorely needed advice and guidance.
Experts take measure of efforts to improve communities
By Vesela Veleva, Research Manager, Boston College Center
“You can’t manage unless you measure” is an old saying that has brought numerous experts on sustainability indicators to work together and create the Community Indicator Consortium, a learning network of organizations and individuals interested in the field of community indicators and their application.
More than 200 experts from government, NGOs, business and community organizations attended this year’s annual conference, held in Bellevue, Wash., Oct.1-2, where the theme was “Community Indicators as Tools for Social Change: Tracking Change and Increasing Accountability.” Issues discussed varied from alternatives to GDP as a measure of economic success to linking community quality of life to performance measures.
The conference had four main themes:
- From planning to implementation
- Creating partnerships and crossing boundaries
- Promoting social change
- Integrating indicators and performance measures
Just as communities struggle to link government performance measures to community quality of life indicators, so do companies that are committed to going beyond measuring inputs and outputs of their community involvement programs to focus on ultimate impacts – both social and business – of such programs.
I joined Jane Coen of Underwriter Laboratories and Maureen Hart of Sustainable Measures in presenting initial findings from the Boston College Center’s Impact Measurement Project. Sponsored by nine Center members (Aetna, Altria, Amway, BestBuy, HP, Lockheed Martin, UL, Intel and Merck & Co.), the project aims to develop a practical framework, guidelines and tools to assist companies in measuring the business value of their community involvement initiatives (Click here for more information about the Impact Measurement project.)
In a lively discussion after the presentation “Measuring the Business Value of Corporate Community Initiatives”, attendees raised many good questions and issues:
- Can/should we measure the business value without measuring the social value?
- How are companies selecting CI programs to measure?
- Are we considering the unintended consequences of CI programs?
- Will companies openly report such indicators of business value?
An interesting measure of community well-being was presented in one of the sessions by Professor Joseph Sirgy from Virginia Tech. People in Flint, Mich., were asked “If you could, would you move out of Flint?” As I was listening to this study I was wondering if a similar “aggregate” indicator could be used to measure employee engagement and job satisfaction.
The most entertaining part of the conference (at least for me) was a new film by Earth Economics to be officially launched this fall. Titled “What’s The Economy For, Anyway?” and similar to the “Story of Stuff”, the film explains basic but often hidden truths about our economic model and the toll it is taking on the environment, people’s health and communities (for more information see www.eartheconomics.org).
As I was leaving the conference I wondered why we have so many communities and companies working on community development projects but so few forums where they can actually meet and talk to each other. Organizations such as the Boston College Center could provide the much-needed platform to bring together various business stakeholders to discuss key social and environmental issues and how to collaborate in addressing them.
