February 22 was International Corporate Philanthropy Day, an annual celebration designed to highlight milestones and achievements in corporate philanthropy and encourage further corporate community investment

The Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP) marked the day with the release of a new report, Measuring the Value of Corporate Philanthropy: Social impact, business benefits, and investor returns, that assesses current practices and measurement trends in corporate philanthropy. This report, which focuses on three primary conversations–between giving practitioners and grantees, between giving practitioners and the CEO, and between the CEO and investor community – aims to assess current practices and measurement trends, clarify the demands practitioners face for impact evidence, and identify the most promising steps forward. Read the rest of this entry »

Hollywood has its Oscars but for the screen gems of the world of corporate citizenship the ultimate experience is participation in the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship’s Film Festival.

Voting opens today and continues through March 10 for members of the general public to choose their favorite video and narrow down the entries to a top 10. Each video captures how the company’s corporate citizenship initiatives are having a positive impact – typically in partnership with nonprofits, customers and employees – on social and environmental challenges. Click here to view the 29 videos submitted and to vote.   Read the rest of this entry »

Is it ethical to refuse a child tutoring services in order to produce a report on the effectiveness of such services? Should you divert resources from programming to measurement when there are more children to serve, families to help, problems to solve and an otherwise overwhelming number of unmet needs?

If actions speak for themselves, then corporate citizenship professionals have answered a resounding “NO!” We have long refused to invest in social sector impact measurement, which measures whether a program generates the ultimate community change it purports to generate, because it means fewer resources for service delivery. Read the rest of this entry »

For the last four years Center member CA, Inc. has sponsored CA Together in Action (CTA), a month-long program to support non-profit organizations around the world. Launched in 2006 as a two-week event, the program expanded to a month to allow as many employees as possible to participate. Read the rest of this entry »

In the never-ending battle between the half-full-glass forces of hope and the half-empty-glass legions of doom, one of the hottest debates these days is over the status (or existence) of an economic recovery. While most attention is focused on a recovery measured in dollars and cents, a recently released survey points to signs of a recovery that may be even more valuable to business – recovery of trust.

The 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer found that trust of U.S. business to do what is right has increased over last year from 36 percent to 54 percent among those surveyed in 20 countries. Shocking? Perhaps, but maybe it’s another indication that CEOs are getting it that the public demands more accountable behavior and will respond favorably to it. Could it be that performing under pressure during a recession paid off?

When the Boston College Center surveyed U.S. senior executives for its 2009 State of Corporate Citizenship, some 54 percent said they believe corporate citizenship is even more important in a recession. Among those same leaders, most said their companies had increased internal and external communication about corporate citizenship in 2009. It looks like it was worth the effort. Read the rest of this entry »