The following blog first appeared on April 21 on the Vault CSR Blog.

Every time a conference agenda mentions Facebook, eyes light up—or roll, according to who is reading it.

On Day 2 of the Boston College Center’s annual conference,  the CEO of Causes, the philanthropic partner of Facebook, was the superstar. Wearing a three-piece suit to an event where the other panelists showed up in more casual attire, Joe Green was not only the surprise element for the morning’s keynote plenary but also the youngest—and most entrepreneurial—speaker there by many measures. Read the rest of this entry »

The following blog first appeared on April 15 on the Microsoft Unlimited Potential Blog.

I’m writing this blog post from a coffee shop in downtown Minneapolis. I’m here this week attending the Boston College Conference on Corporate Citizenship.

As some of you may recall, Minneapolis is the setting for the Mary Tyler Moore show. When I think of the lyrics to the show’s theme song it actually resonates with the topics I’ve heard from many of the conference attendees.

While there are people here from a diverse set of industries, from pharmaceuticals to oil, retail, entertainment, technology and financial, we all have similar challenges and opportunities in our work. I even spent some time chatting with a gentleman from the Hugh Hefner Foundation. Ironically, he probably had the easiest to remember charter of anyone I encountered when he said, “their focus is on First Amendment rights.” Read the rest of this entry »

The following blog first appeared on April 14 on the CauseNation blog.

This week I facilitated a panel at the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship conference on how corporate social responsibility can fuel business innovation.  We had a rock star panel with Amy Skoczlas Cole (eBay’s Head of Environment and Director of eBay Green Team); Eve Callahan, (Umpqua Bank’s SVP, Corporate Communications); and Kris Bowring (Best Buy’s Senior Director, Home Management).

We had a dynamic conversation about how each of these companies are being intentional about creating disruption in their cultures and challenging the status quo.  They are doing this not because it’s fun and easy (we learned quite the opposite), but because ultimately their work will not only fuel their business and create new growth opportunities, but also positively impact society. From “real” community banking; to a sustainable shipping box; and a best-in-class electronics recycling initiative, we had a powerful session.   Read the rest of this entry »

The following blog first appeared on April 12 on the Microsoft Unlimited Potential Blog.

I’m here in Minneapolis to attend the 2011 Corporate Citizenship Conference sponsored by Boston College’s Center for Corporate Citizenship.  Microsoft is proud to be one of the conference sponsors again this year and I am honored to have been asked to participate on a panel today to try and answer the question: “How in the World Do You Handle Global Corporate Citizenship?” The panel was facilitated by Ron Brown, one of the Center’s faculty members and I was  joined l by Anne Roosevelt, my counterpart at The Boeing Company and Katherine Woerner from the global citizenship team at Abbott Laboratories.

The Center has promised conference participants four takeaways – knowledge, solutions, best practices and connections.  So, in thinking about our panel conversation today I keeping those take aways in mind as we share experiences, insights and learnings. Read the rest of this entry »

A video showing how Cummins engineers worked to bring an innovative power generation system to a remote village in India took first place in our annual Corporate Citizenship Film Festival, which attracted a record number of video entries and saw voters flooding online polls at a record rate.

The Film Festival was part of our 2011 International Corporate Citizenship Conference, held April 10-12, in Minneapolis. A total of 37 companies submitted videos to compete for the Film Festival trophy for best demonstration of using video to tell a corporate citizenship story. Joining Cummins in the group of 10 finalists were Allstate, Avon, Dassault Systemes, Ernst & Young, FedEx, Marathon Oil, Southwest Airlines, Tyco and UST Global. Read the rest of this entry »

What does health and wellness have to do with corporate citizenship? Quite a bit actually. Not only is taking care of employees a moral imperative for businesses today, it is also a sound business strategy.

This important topic was the center of a discussion hosted by Humana at the 2011 International Corporate Citizenship Conference.

Less than 10 percent of Americans believe that their employers contribute to their health and well being, said Paul Gerrard, director of corporate affairs and chairman of the Humana Corporate Social Responsibility Council. In fact, most Americans see their job as a detriment to their overall health and well being. Read the rest of this entry »

Corporations are facing many challenges as they expand their corporate citizenship globally. In a break out session on the topic, panelists from companies that have a presence in several countries addressed the topic. They discussed the challenges and offered strategies and practices used by some major corporations. Read the rest of this entry »

Typically the community initiative aspect and environmental aspect of corporate social responsibility in a company have been kept separate. This can, however, be overcome. During a breakout session, examples of how to build employee engagement in environmental issues to complement an already strong record of addressing community needs were presented by Carole Casto, Cummins Inc. director of global community development and Susan Arnot Heaney, Avon Products Inc. director of corporate responsibility. Read the rest of this entry »