| Shared Value Today | |
| H1 tags : A recent article from The Guardian (Charity funding: How to approach business for help) highlights something that has been apparent for quite some time; non-profits are making critical mistakes in their approaches to corporations and in some instances government as well.; ; The most common complaint heard from business is that the approach taken by most non-profits lack “business realism” and “professionalism”.; Here’s the problem that non profits face today. Corporations deal in a completely different environment than they did just a few years ago. In today’s public environment corporations must focus on community expectations. They must demonstrate to the communities that they are aware of the community’s needs and communities are expecting more and more from them every day.; This creates a great challenge for non-profits as the old paradigm is not going to work anymore. The appeal most often presented by non-profits “please give us money because we do such wonderful work” is outmoded and ineffective.; Today, non profits must appeal to donors based on the needs of the donor. Appeals must not be based on the needs of the non –profit; the appeal must provide mutual benefit to the corporation and the non-profit organization and the partnership must provide community benefit based on the business objectives of the donor.; Corporations want benefit from their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives that complement their business objectives. It’s all about “creating shared value” that is demonstrable to the community.; There are many strategies that can be employed that create value for business, non-profits and the community.; I had an interesting conversation recently with an official of New York City responsible in part for managing vendors for the city’s social services agencies. She expressed the same frustration telling me that she is constantly counseling her vendors to demonstrate the benefit of their services.; Non-profits must begin to think in terms of the outcomes that they produce rather than appealing to donors based on the good work that they do. Instead of telling donors what they do in today’s world non-profits must focus their appeals on the social benefit of what they do. Donors want to know what the outcomes of your efforts are. They are not only interested about how many people have benefited from your program. They want to know how those people have benefitted.; Once you’ve focused on outcomes your appeals will have a complete change of nature and you will be able to focus on appealing to potential business partners with whom you can create shared value.; In later posts I’ll begin to identify strategies that non-profits and for-profit can deploy to find common value. |
| Last Update : | 26/December/2011 |
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