Lisa Lindgren ’11Journal #1
I am approaching the end of my fourth week at the Business Civic Leadership Center (BCLC) and am amazed by how quickly the weeks have gone so far. With such a small staff, it is quite impressive that so much is accomplished here.
My first week was devoted primarily to the Global Corporate Citizenship (GCC) program, an initiative in which nearly 50 companies are engaged. We are working with the administration’s program through USAID, called Feed the Future, to facilitate corporate involvement in improving food security in the developing world, an issue about which I am personally very passionate. How can the private and public sectors collaborate to most effectively tackle some of the world’s most pressing issues? This is one of the main questions with which the GCC grapples.
I also recently contributed to the Corporate Community Investment program, led by a former deputy administrator at the Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration by evaluating trends that will impact the future of sustainable city development. My boss presented these findings at a regional forum in Copenhagen. Going forward, we are also working with the Office of Housing and Urban Development to create a partnership among key Region II cities, corporations, and nonprofits interested in sustainable economic development. Much of my work in the upcoming weeks will be focused on preparation for our July 23 meeting, including the creation of a new database that reflects ongoing sustainable economic and community development projects throughout the country.
BCLC is a great learning environment, and I feel fortunate to be learning about corporate citizenship programs from the leaders of those programs in the corporate community themselves. Later next month we will be selecting finalists for the 2010 BCLC Corporate Citizenship awards, and I can already tell that the decisions will be difficult to make, considering the abundance of truly innovative ways by which corporations are embracing corporate citizenship as part of their core business strategy.
Journal #2
With the commotion of DC politics swarming around me, it is requiring a larger degree of effort to focus on concrete tasks for the summer rather than looking further into the future and the long-term impact of our projects at the Business Civic Leadership Center.
One important project I have been managing over the last few weeks is the Corporate Citizenship Awards program. Each year since 2002 the Business Civic Leadership Center has selected the best corporate contributions in the categories of US Community Service, International Community Service, Partnerships, and overall Corporate Stewardship. Winners from last year included Wegmans, Abbott Fund, UPS, and Chevron (with the Discovery Channel Global Education Project). The process through which the companies are nominated and vetted is a detailed one involving application readings by BCLC staff, outside readers, and judges from the corporate community. Because of the tight deadlines, coordination is crucial to the successful outcome of this project. We have received so many inspiring applications this year — it is wonderful to be reminded of how corporations are working hard to contribute to the societies in which they operate, despite the current economic climate.
Another primary undertaking of mine — in conjunction with the event with the Department of Housing and Urban Development — on which I am devoting a large portion of time, is the creation of a sustainability database that maps what the public and private sectors are currently doing to promote sustainability in their endeavors for economic and community development. I am researching all 50 states (as well as the District of Columbia) and the 100 largest metropolitan areas to determine the key players for sustainability initiatives and the funds budgeted to deal with those issues. As I conduct this research, it is interesting to see how recently many of these cities’ “sustainability chiefs” have been appointed. This is clearly an area that will be growing substantially in the near future. In fact, the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program held a working group meeting this week on the topic of defining and fostering the green economy. Cities and metropolitan areas will be at the heart of these development efforts.
Journal #3
My internship at the Business Civic Leadership Center certainly concluded on a positive note. After spending hours poring over nomination packages for the four categories of the Corporate Citizenship awards and discussing the nominees in a lengthy roundtable discussion involving BCLC staff and a few external participants, we arrive on a selection of five finalists for each category, based primarily on a quantitative scoring rubric devised with my colleagues. All but the Partnership award winner will be determined by a committee composed of members with strong backgrounds in the field of Corporate Citizenship. The population at large will select the Partnership winner, by using an online voting portal. These winners for all categories will be recognized at an awards dinner at the end of November 2010.
Another interesting opportunity I had to round out my internship and fit my work into the bigger picture of how important public-private partnerships are in the field of sustainable economic development, both domestically and internationally, was to participate in two hearings in the House Foreign Affairs Committee. One, hosted by the Subcommittee on Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight, focused on public-private partnerships in reaching the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, while the other, hosted by the Western Hemisphere subcommittee questioned whether progress was being made toward recovery in Haiti in a timely manner. Participants from the private sector were present at both hearings and asked to testify before the committee. I don’t think many leaders would question the necessity of using skill sets from both the public and private sectors to remedy critical issues plaguing the world.
Looking back at my 10 weeks at BCLC, I can say that I learned a great deal about the private sector’s investment in corporate citizenship activities while I learned about their various partnerships with the public sector. There are still many challenges; however, progress is certainly being made to improve collaboration between the sectors.
