In New York this week, I witnessed a bit of history in the making. Three words uttered by Don Imus, American radio ‘shock jock’, threw the US into a storm of debate about race. Just like the Nor’easter whipping through the city, the powerful reaction to this radio host’s racist comments about the Rutgers women’s basketball team were felt by everyone.
As the tempest subsides, New York’s spring skies are once again a brilliant blue and Imus has been silenced, but something in the air is still amiss.
What does the Imus affair have to do with corporate citizenship? The CBS radio host reminded Americans and the world last week that there still very much exists a global culture of ‘us versus them’. Whether distinctions are about race, gender, religion, class, age, or income, assumptions made about ‘them’ are often based on ignorance, are destructive, and inhibit both individuals and communities from being recognised for their full potential.
In this case, any assumptions about the Rutgers women were dispelled when the spotlight revealed clearly their poise and talent. But, many other individuals and communities remain in the shadows. Don Imus has started a conversation. But, the conversation shouldn’t stop here. This incident should encourage corporations to consider their role in creating a world of ‘us.’ And, not just because it’s the right thing to do for society, but because it’s the right thing for business.
Fortunately, we are witnessing early signs of a corporate shift towards ‘social inclusion’. Corporations are beginning to move from corporate citizenship programs that are based on risk management, towards value creation strategies. As a result of this process, they are beginning to test assumptions about who they include as customers, suppliers, and partners. From finance institutions to consumer goods manufacturers, corporations are attempting to create competitive advantage by bringing diverse groups into the development, production and delivery of their products and services. SustainAbility believes this new approach, what we’ve come to call Mindset 3.0 – creating business value by solving social and environmental challenges – is the key not only to the future of corporate citizenship, but to business success.
While some companies are innovating from within, many more are taking a collaborative approach, modeling their initiatives after – and in some cases partnering directly with – citizen sector organisations or ‘social entrepreneurs’. These societal change agents – many of whom still remain in the shadows – have been working for decades pioneering innovative and entrepreneurial approaches to realise social inclusion. Connected by a common belief that every individual has the power to make a difference, this growing community of social entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs (change agents within corporations) is leading a way to a world of ‘us.’
Bringing banking to the world’s poor
One of the most exceptional examples of social entrepreneurship is that of Professor Muhammad Yunus, winner of last year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Professor Yunus is known to many as the father of microfinance. Starting with a single loan of $27 to a Bangladeshi woman, Professor Yunus has grown his vision into the world’s largest micro-lending institution: the Grameen Bank.
The organisation has 7 million borrowers with 2381 branches providing banking services to nearly 76,000 Bangladeshi villages. What is striking about the success of this organisation is that not only did Grameen target poor individuals, but it targeted poor Bangladeshi women: a group that has been historically segregated by its community.
Women have been held apart from society, with the result that they were generally illiterate, which has made it even harder for them to participate in the mainstream. It is therefore no accident that before Grameen came along less than 1% of all borrowers in Bangladesh were women, compared to 97% of its own borrowers today.
As Professor Yunus noted: “Poverty is like being surrounded by high walls around you. Grameen, and all its replications around the world, helps people gather will and strength to make the effort to crack the walls around them, and break them down.”
In addition to spurring a frenzy of microlending activity by more mainstream institutions, Grameen has attracted corporate partners seeking assistance in bringing their products to the world’s poor. For example, Danone entered into a 50-50 joint venture with Grameen in March 2006 to form Grameen Danone Foods Social Business Enterprise in Bangladesh. The company’s mission is to bring daily healthy nutrition to low income, nutritionally deprived populations in Bangladesh and alleviate poverty.
Leveraging the respective strengths of its founding partners (healthy foods for Danone and mico-credit for Grameen), the Grameen Danone Foods model will rely on the creation of independent business and job opportunities in the farming, processing, and sales and distribution sectors.
While it’s likely too early to gauge the tangible business benefits of this partnership, CEO Frank Riboud believes that his company’s future depends on its ability to explore new markets and types of enterprise.
Using sport as a tool for social inclusion
Seeking a way to unite homeless people around the world, Mel Young, Scottish founder of the Big Issue, established the Homeless World Cup.
Modeling his organisation after the most popular sporting event on the planet, Mel encourages homeless footballers from Argentina to Australia to take to the pitch in an annual competition, which, last year, drew 500 players and 100,000 spectators to South Africa. By becoming a valued member of a team, supported by a community of coaches, fans and other supporters, the participants in the Homeless World Cup are tapping into and being recognised for their talents – both on and off the field. A social impact report found that fully 77% of the once-homeless players involved had improved their lives.
Over a third (38%) had found regular employment, and a similar proportion had improved their housing situation.
Nike is an ongoing sponsor of the Homeless World Cup and helps both to promote the event and provide the team with apparel. According to Ziba Cranmer, social innovation manager at Nike, their designers compete to work on the world cup. Not only is it a meaningful project to work on, it communicates to employees that Nike cares – that it does the right thing. And, this is just one piece of the puzzle. Nike has made a commitment to reach more people with sport, believing that everyone is an athlete. It sponsored a conference last year on gender equality in sport in Morocco, which included a 10K road race of 22,000 women and girls in Casablanca, and is continuing efforts to reach out to these groups and others around the world.
Continue the conversation
Though longer term success of many of these initiatives is still uncertain, it is inspiring to see a growing number of efforts by social innovators both big and small. As SustainAbility observes the continued evolution of corporate citizenship, we believe strongly that it is these change agents who will drive the agenda. No longer will discussions centre only on risk management or traditional stakeholder engagement, but will focus more on the opportunity to benefit both business and society through social inclusion. So, to echo Nike, Thank You, Don Imus, for starting the conversation (The sports-apparel giant took out a full-page ad in The New York Times indirectly thanking Imus for bringing the issues of race relations and sexism to the forefront.) It is now up to all of us to continue it.
Maggie Brenneke leads SustainAbility’s research programme on social entrepreneurship, which includes the company’s three-year field building effort with the Skoll Foundation to explore opportunities for collaboration between social entrepreneurs and large corporations and investors. She is a co-author of the recent report Growing Opportunity: Entrepreneurial Solutions to Insoluble Problems, released this spring at the Skoll World Forum in Oxford, UK.
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