Author: Brittany M.

#NI17 Path to Purpose

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the 25th annual Net Impact conference in Atlanta, GA.  For those unfamiliar with Net Impact, it is an organization that was started by MBA students with the goal of bringing impact and  purpose mainstream. Currently there are over 300 chapters across the country with tens of thousands of members.

This year’s theme was Path to Purpose which aimed to help attendees explore what it means to them to build a career with purpose.  The event began with several boot ca20171101_124409mp sessions around  design thinking, racial equity,  and advancing in an impact career.  There was also a symposium  on leading with the triple bottom line.  Following was the 2017 cohort Fellowship kickoff, which I took part in as a Tech for Good fellow.

Of  the two keynotes given during the conference, my favorite was actually on climate change.  The speakers were Paul Hawken, Executive Director of Project Drawdown, and  Derreck Kayongo, CEO of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights.  Derreck gave an inspiring, and at times funny, speech about his childhood in Uganda, to coming to the U.S. and seeing how much hotels waste soap.  He noted that the over 800 million bars of soap are thrown  out by hotels annually, leading to compromised decomposition of waste that actually affects climate change.

My experience at20171101_124510 the conference was very informative and inspiring.  Given that I am part of the Tech for Good fellowship, the sessions I attended were obviously geared  toward  technology.  For me,  the most interesting sessions were Leveraging Tech as a Force for Good and How Tech is Changing Philanthropy.  Side note, I  am pretty disappointed in missing the Founders Who Paved their Own Way session on startups and corporate impact since that is something I  am working on.

One of the requirements for the fellowship is to create an impact project locally and document the process and the outcomes.  I will be using this blog to track some of the progress on my impact project, as well as my progress of starting a Net Impact chapter on Point Park’s campus. I have a really good idea for the impact proposal that will benefit Pittsburgh non-profit organizations, so keep a lookout for future posts.

 

 

The Best Apps to Make an Impact

As of this year, there are over 2.8 million apps for Android users and about 2.2 million  apps for Apple iOS users. Whether you a2imagesre using the App Store or the Google Play store, you can’t help but notice the large number of replicated applications from astrology apps to credit score tracking apps.  There are literally thousands of budgeting apps and there over one hundred different period trackers.

That being said, out of all these apps, there are only a handful that promote or aid in  the social good.  Not to say ‘a handful’ as in a few, but in the context of the millions of apps available. A few of my favorites are Share the Meal, CharityBox, and One Today.

Share The Meal  is a project from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) that allows their users to donate with the click of a button to help fight world hunger.  CharityBox, on the other hand, allows you to search within the app and donate to a charity of your choosing.  Finally, One Today focuses on current projects of non-profit organizations, giving their users the opportunity to donate the project of the day.

Our phones are a major part of our lives from the moment we wake up to the alarm on A green leaf with a heart shape on a computer circuit board / green it / green computing / csr / it ethicsour phone, to what we read on our phone before we go to bed, and everything in between.  Using our phones to make simple, yet meaningful contributions to the world we live, on  a local or global level, is a great opportunity that more people should engage in and support.

Deloitte’s Millennial Survey 2017: Accountability and Influence

Deloitte has posted the results of their sixth annual Millennial Survey this year revealing less optimism and more apprehension.  As a result of a tumultuous political season last year and economic disruption including Brexit, millennials are less ambitious in bailing on current employers.  Instead they are seeking stability in what seems like a time of uncertainty.

Despite the obvious downturn of the 2017 survey results from those of 2016, the desire for millennials to work for a socially responsible organization has anything but diminished.  Their outlook on the current state of social impact among businesses is favorable. However, there is a desire for larger, multinational organizations to make more of an impact on social issues on a global level.

Many millennials feel accountability for the issues in the world around them.  Given that it may not be feasible for the average individual to make a global impact, employees seek to make an impact through their employers. Employer sponsored CSR initiatives including corporate volunteering, community outreach events, and charitable donations give employees the feeling of empowerment and influence.  These opportunities allow millennials, and any other socially conscious employees, to make tangible impacts locally.

According to the 2017 the survey administered by Deloitte, 59% of millennials believe they are at least fairly responsible for protecting the environment.  However they are realistic in the scope of their impact with only 38% of millennials believing they will have a significant level of influence on the world around them.  Overall, 77% of the participants have engaged in some charitable activity from fundraising to volunteering.

Millennials appear to have a preference to work for organizations that are socially responsible with respect to the world around them including the community and the environment. Although they are aware of their limitations of impact, millennials seek out opportunities to contribute to a good cause through their employers.  It is in the workplace that millennials feel they are the most accountable and can have the most influence.

 

 

 

CSR Initiatives Attract Top Talent

Competition is thicker than ever when it comes to the job market.  More and more candidates have advanced degrees and certifications that would, in the past, provide an advantage in the hiring procesimagess.  This leads one to believe that the job market has turned into a seller’s market over the years, where quality job seekers come a dime a dozen and employers have their pick.  While this may be the case for the average job seekers simply looking to get their foot in the door.  This is not the case for top talent with their own set of requirements they expect from an employer.

Top talent, especially those that are millennials, demand to work for innovative organizations that have more to offer than a decent benefits package and a competitive salary. Many want to work for a company that is socially responsible and focused on engagement of their employees.

Surveys administered from Gallup , Deloitte, and Net Impact, to name a few, show that job seekers and current employees prefer to work for organizations that are committed to CSR. They want the organization they work for to share their personal values and make a sociological-environmental impact.

Therefore, in order to attract top talent, many companies have changed their brand strategies while ramping up CSR initiatives. Sustainability and corporate social responsibility are not new philosophies in business.  That is why the focus now is not on whether or not a firm has a CSR initiative, as most companies do.  It is the extent to which the organization incorporates CSR in their framework and the sincerity of the programs that attract top talent.