subscribe by email
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.
2010 Conference: Nature or Nurture – The connection between corporate culture and effective corporate citizenship?
By Jeremy Schwab, Guest Blogger
As someone who has worked for both highly functional and highly dysfunctional organizations, I have often wondered what makes a company behave one way or the other. That is why I was very excited to attend the 2010 conference session entitled “Nature or Nurture: What is the Connection Between Corporate Culture and Effective Corporate Citizenship?”
Besides the topic, the draw for me was the high profile speakers: John Pazzani, vice president and corporate culture officer at The Timberland Company; Kandace Olsen, vice president of Communications and Human Resources for Great River Energy; and LaMae Allen deJongh, managing director of U.S. Human Capital and Diversity for Accenture.
During the session, the panelists tackled some broad questions: Can the principles driving corporate citizenship and the values it needs to thrive be imported into the culture, or do they have to be present at the founding of the company? Why is the seemingly simple ideal of doing right by both the business and society soometimes so difficult to comprehend and communicate inside your company?
These types of questions take the quest for effective corporate citizenship in a sometimes overlooked direction: inside the company. So much of corporate citizenship communications initiatives are geared toward appealing to external stakeholders: shareholders, consumers, the local community where the corporation operates, and the public at large. But in this session, the speakers looked at the advantages of leveraging corporate citizenship initiatives to improve employee retention, morale, and teamwork.
John Pazzani described a culture at Timberland where employees are so heavily involved in volunteerism that “when people aren’t on board with the social mission, it is fairly obvious.” Timberland, of course, is famous for allowing its employees paid days off to volunteer every year.
During the question and answer session, an audience member asked the panelists how they manage to integrate two corporate cultures when one company acquires another. Kandace Olsen described a situation when Great River Energy acquired another company: “One thing we did is honor those past companies and cultures. But we also really wanted to put [the old cultures] aside for awhile because we want people to honor the new culture. We don’t want people to forget the old company, but really get them thinking about the future.”
Of course, when you engaged your employees in giving and volunteerism, you want to track that data to share with stakeholders. LaMae Allen deJongh said that Accenture tracks employee giving, pro bono work, and volunteering. However, “the more de-centralized it becomes, it becomes more of a challenge for us.”
