In less than a week I'll be headed to Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship's (BCCCC) annual conference, where Intel will be the lead sponsor. One recent post on the BCCCC blog offers up a sneak preview into conference sessions, a sort of
top ten list for CSR geeks, like me (and maybe you, if you're reading this?)
This list highlights a number of topics that I'm currently struggling with in my day to day job- so I'm looking forward to escaping from my grey cubicle for a little while and meeting up with my counterparts at other companies to dig in and work my way through the sessions. So which one is my top pick from the top ten list?
Well, I was going to pick #2, because that sounds like the most fun, but I think I'll go with a tie for #3 and #4. I continue to look for ways to better measure and understand the impact of CSR initiatives - impact to the bottom line, impact to reputation, impact of programs to help the community and improve education. There's a ton of work going on out there these days (and internally here at Intel but I personally don't think we've fully cracked that nut yet) and I'm looking forward to some new research that will be released at the conference on this topic. What's your own top pick from this list?
The other thing we're planning to do at the conference is to invite all of the 400 or so conference attendees to join in the Intel Small Things Challenge, which my colleague Theresa mentioned in her post last week. We created the challenge to show how even very small individual investments can collectively make a big impact in improving education and economic development around the world. Intel will make a donation of 25 cents for each click on the site.
But wait. 400 conference attendees x $0.25 = $100. Doesn't seem like much at all. But do you remember that annoying television commercial from the 70s? Think it was for shampoo or something - "and she'll tell two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on..."
- If each of those 400 people told two friends, and they told two friends, and they told two friends, and they told two friends - you're up to around $8,000.
- Make that a multiplier of 3 friends in the chain - you're up to around $25,000
- A multiplier of 5 friends gets us up to donations of over $100,000.
And that's not even counting the potential impact of the additional individual donations that everyone can make directly to kiva.org, Save the Children, and Technology for Education as part of the challenge.
So, consider yourself now part of the "virtual" conference attendee list and click now to start the ball rolling. www.smallthingschallenge.com
Suzanne Fallender is Intel’s Director of Corporate Responsibility. In this role, she collaborates with key stakeholders across the company to integrate corporate responsibility concepts into company strategies, policies, public reporting, and stakeholder engagement activities to advance Intel’s corporate responsibility leadership and create positive social impact and business value. Suzanne leads a team of experienced professionals who engage with internal and external groups to review Intel’s corporate responsibility performance and to identify new opportunities to apply Intel’s technology and expertise to address social and environmental challenges. The team also works closely with Intel’s investor relations and corporate governance groups to drive an integrated outreach strategy with investors on governance and corporate responsibility issues. Suzanne has more than 20 years of experience in the field of corporate responsibility and socially responsible investment. During her time at Intel, Suzanne has held a number of corporate responsibility-related roles, including leading programs empowering girls and women through technology. Prior to Intel, Suzanne served as Vice President at Institutional Shareholder Services where she managed the firm’s socially responsible investing division. Suzanne holds an M.B.A. from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University and a B.A. from Trinity College in Hartford, CT. She has served on a number of leading industry advisory boards and committees on sustainability and corporate responsibility over the past decade and currently is a member of the Net Impact Board of Directors. Follow Suzanne on Twitter at @sfallender.