“Weathering the Storm: The State of Corporate Citizenship in the United States 2009” reported that despite a year dominated by dark economic clouds, some rays of light managed to shine through in the form of companies’ commitment to corporate citizenship.

Now it appears some sunny news has shined on the report itself.

The Hitachi Foundation, sponsor of the State of Corporate Citizenship survey and report, has won a Wilmer Shields Rich Award for “Weathering the Storm” from the Council on Foundations. The award recognizes grant making foundations and corporate giving programs for excellence in communication strategies and techniques that advance their grant making goals.

The 2009 State of Corporate Citizenship in the United States is the fourth biennial survey of the attitudes and actions of senior executives in small, medium and large businesses regarding corporate citizenship. It also explored the challenges of integrating corporate citizenship into core business practices and how tough economic times have impacted these practices. For the first time it also examined how executives view new public policy challenges and their reaction to public expectations for better regulation of business.

In her closing keynote address at the Center’s conference, Kathryn C. Brown of Verizon emphasized the importance of values for corporate citizenship professionals. But she wasn’t talking about the kind you can measure with indicators or display on a spread sheet.

After three days of listening to speakers and talking with attendees, Brown asked a question of herself and the audience. “How is it that in the worst year for business in three decades, when our companies have been under such strain, that there could be such energy in this room?”

Brown, the senior vice president, Public Policy Development & Corporate Responsibility at Verizon, noted that despite Wall Street’s disastrous mismanagement of consumers’ money, the most recent Edelman corporate trust barometer is going up and optimism seems to abound that economic rebirth is coming with spring. How, she asked, can that be?

“I think it’s because we all faced the abyss and then we walked back from it and rediscovered our core shared values – as a society, as a political body and as corporate citizens,” remarked Brown. Read the rest of this entry »

On the final day of the 2010 conference attendees were offered advice on the workplace of the future and its relevance for corporate citizenship by an envoy for the young terrors of Generation Y who have already begun invading corporate America.

Nadira Hira wrote Fortune’s widely discussed 2007 cover story on Gen Yers and their impact on corporate America. She also writes a blog for Gen Yers on Fortune.com called “The Gig”. Along with her age, these credentials make her a perfect interpreter for this generation of Americans born between 1977 and the mid-’90s.

Hira addressed the unasked questions on the minds of every baby boomer and members of Generation X in the audience: Who are these strange creatures? How do you deal with them? And, how can they possibly become an asset to an organization? Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone knows that today, “green” is the new “black.” But how are companies creating new strategies that can move a company from looking at the environment from a philanthropic perspective and instead using environmental programs to create business value? Stan Mierzejewski at the Tennant Company, Michael Dupee from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, and Bruce Klafter at Applied Materials showed that their diverse companies – one’s a coffee roaster, one’s a floor-cleaner manufacturer and one’s in nanotechnology – were each benefiting from introducing new products, cutting costs and/or differentiating themselves from competitors using green business strategies. Read the rest of this entry »

The conference session I participated in, Measuring What Matters: Finding the Business Value of Community Involvement Initiatives, was packed, standing-room only. Not surprising, given that this is a major pain point for a lot of corporate citizenship professionals. I was joined in this session by Bea Boccalandro, a Center Faculty member; Chris Montross, managing director, Community Relations, Aetna and vice president, Aetna Foundation;  Jane Coen, global manager, Corporate Citizenship, Underwriters Laboratories.

We opened the session with an introduction to the Boston College Center’s Impact Measurement project, touching briefly on the current state of measurement. Then we provided a brief overview of the draft measurement framework coming from the project, followed by a drill-down into the specific steps of the framework. The company examples of how Aetna and Underwriters Laboratories completed each framework step were clearly illustrated by the session speakers and really brought the framework to life. Read the rest of this entry »

This breakout session focused, as the title suggests, on the corporate social report which has become a routine task of the CSR departments. Companies recognize these reports as an essential management tool to communicate and track key performance indicators. Analysts use these reports to evaluate how the environmental, social and governance dimensions are affecting the financial health of the company.

So what? That is the question put to the two panelists, Elaine Salewske, Senior Manager, Corporate Communications, Baxter International Inc and Eric Fernald, Head of Research, Risk Metrics Group. 

In order to ensure a comprehensive approach, it’s important to consider two perspectives of reporting: that of the writer as well as that of the reader. Baxter is a long-term reporter and believes in the need to prioritize content rather than the production of the report. In deciding what to include into a report, Baxter uses GRI standards as well as requests for information from the numerous stakeholders. On the other hand, Risk Metrics Group looks at many sustainability reports – as many as  500 annually – and rates companies based on a multitude of metrics relevant to socially-responsible investors and other stakeholders. RMG provided a perspective on how that content is weighed and analyzed externally. Read the rest of this entry »

Ann and Wendy are pioneers in stewarding the transition of  corporate philanthropy from a request-based practice of giving to a more proactive, targeted, and informed process of expanding the global impact of corporate business and values.

Ann Cramer is the director Americas of IBM Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs, while Wendy Ramage Hawkings holds the position of executive director of the Intel Foundation.

Chris Pinney, director of Research and Policy at the Boston College Center, jump-started this session on corporate foundations in transition with a quick history lesson on the topic of foundations.

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Until arriving to speak at the Boston College Center’s conference Monday evening, John Hoffman wasn’t aware the term corporate citizenship is used in such a formal way. But he did understand there is an enormous amount of corporate citizenship going on at HBO, where he is an award-winning documentary producer and vice president of HBO Documentary Films.

Hoffman and Jennifer Brown, executive vice president, Corporate Services and Sponsorship, Fidelity Investments, spoke to conference attendees about HBO’s partnership with Fidelity on “The Alzheimer’s Project”, a four-part series which won two Emmy awards. “The Memory Loss Tapes” was honored for Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking, while “Grandpa, Do You Know Who I Am? with Maria Shriver” won for Outstanding Children’s Nonfiction Program. Read the rest of this entry »