As the economy slowly resuscitates, companies might use a slow rebound as an excuse to ignore their social responsibilities. But I ask you to take a lesson from IBM, and not, as the company says, “retreat into our shells,” but rather, “go on the offense.”
“Although some companies are reacting to the present crisis by hunkering down and hoping to ride out the storm, from both a business and a societal standpoint, we are taking a different approach,” writes IBM Chairman and CEO Samuel J. Palmisano in the company’s 2008 Corporate Social Responsibility Report. “We believe that the issues facing the world are too critical and far too urgent — and the opportunities to make meaningful progress on them too immediate — not to act now.” |
For this reason IBM pledged itself to:
- Aiding victims of natural disasters with its “disaster relief in a box” Web-based management system.
- Addressing food shortages by helping compute genetic data that can be used to generate stronger strains of rice.
- Using technology to improve educational opportunities for 700 schools in 22 countries.
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C. Warren Moses, Former CEO
Tags: C. Warren Moses, Children, children's aid new york, voices
By Children's Aid Society
There has been a lot of debate lately as to whether proposals such as health-care reform will turn America into a socialist state.
Considering what I’ve learned in 35 years working for nonprofits, I confidently say that this can never be the case.
America will never become socialist because our advancement as a nation depends too greatly on the work of private donors (including individuals, corporations, and corporate foundations) in partnership with nonprofit organizations and the government to work together to find solutions to society’s most complex problems.
This uniquely American “social trinity” ensures that responsibility for public welfare can’t rest solely on the shoulders of the state. It hasn’t happened, isn’t happening, and won’t happen because the system we’ve developed is too effective to be tossed into the recycling bin in favor of government agencies created to do the job nonprofits do so well.
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C. Warren Moses, Former CEO
Tags: C. Warren Moses, Children, children's aid new york, voices
By Children's Aid Society
In the nonprofit world, the phrase, “we’ll do lunch” has its own meaning in the sense that “lunch” is code for “bring your checkbook.” You (the donor) and I (the nonprofit CEO) will enjoy a meal and then I’m going to pull out all the stops to prove to you why my charity deserves your organization’s financial support.
You might be invited to one of these lunches in the coming weeks, as charities make that year-end fund-raising push. The CEOs will have his (or her) spiel down pat. He’s polished. He even has a dollar figure in mind that he’d like to see you contribute. But eventually he’ll stop talking, and then it’s your turn to ask the questions. What you ask can help you determine the best use of your philanthropic dollar.
Here are the first three questions every courted donor should ask during The Lunch:
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C. Warren Moses, Former CEO
Tags: C. Warren Moses, Children, children's aid new york, voices
By Children's Aid Society
With the markets about as calm as a roller coaster, what we’re thankful for is all too often an afterthought. I don’t know anyone these days who doesn’t treat their stock portfolio as a scene from a gory horror flick: “I’m afraid to look — but I can’t help it — oh, I shouldn’t have looked.”
But while sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner with my family, I thought about what I’m grateful for. Those people surrounding me at the table — my wonderful wife, the kids I’m so proud of, and the grandchildren who never stop making me laugh — top the list. But I am also thankful to have a job that I love.
I’ve spent most of my career working for the Children’s Aid Society, a New York City nonprofit whose sole mission is caring for the health, education and well-being of children. My first job with Children’s Aid was as a social worker; today, I am the (former) CEO…..
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C. Warren Moses, Former CEO
Tags: C. Warren Moses, Children, children's aid new york, voices
By Children's Aid Society
If you check your inbox or mailbox today, there’s a good chance one of them contains an appeal from a nonprofit agency.
It could be a newsletter containing information about new programs, or a request to contribute toward a donor-match program. Or it could simply be a profile of someone whose life was improved because of the financial support of people like you.
This is because now more than ever, nonprofits need to focus on marketing and outreach. If your own company is going through difficult financial times, your sales force is the last place you look for savings. Cutting your sales department would be mortgaging your future. The same thing applies to non profits. The last place we reduce spending is in the areas that help us add to our coffers: public relations, donor communications, and marketing.
Like most charities, The Children’s Aid Society needs to make every effort to keep our supporters up to date on our activities and impact. That means we need to……
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C. Warren Moses, Former CEO
Tags: C. Warren Moses, Children, children's aid new york
By Children's Aid Society
If President Obama’s Office of Social Innovation gets the $50 million he’s requested to help fund non-profit agencies, I’ve got a suggestion for how to best spend that money: Tackle the hardest problems first.
What are the hardest problems? As someone who’s spent the last 40 years working with disadvantaged children, two top my list: teen pregnancy and public education.
In this article, I’ll discuss teen pregnancy. Despite decades of intervention, the US still has the highest pregnancy rate in the developing world. Each year, 4 out of 20 teens will get pregnant. In 2006, nearly half a million babies were born to girls between the ages of 15-19 in the US. These numbers frustrate me immensely because I see evidence everyday that with the right interventions, our country can reverse this trend.
At The Children’s Aid Society, we have taken a holistic approach to teen-pregnancy prevention. The Carrera Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program is based on what we know for sure: Hope is a powerful contraceptive.
To read the full article, link here
C. Warren Moses, CEO
Tags: C. Warren Moses, Carrera Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program, disadvantaged children, Minyanville, President Obama, public education, social innovation, teen pregnancy
By Children's Aid Society
Right now, everyone is focused on finding the cure for our current economic crisis. Bailouts, recovery plans and billion-dollar loans hopefully will get our economy back on firm footing soon. But we also need to look at the long-term, big picture of what will propel our economy into the future. And I believe that can be accomplished by reinventing the driver of our success: a world-class education.
If you look back at our nation’s history, our wealth was not built solely by great ideas. Rather, it also came from a very well-educated workforce created by created by world-class public schools. Children of immigrants who arrived on our shores 100 years ago received an education that lifted them from poverty to the working class and beyond. That influx of new workers built factories and invented and perfected new technologies. Workers on the assembly line could earn a comfortable living.
For the past 2 decades, the factory jobs that created prosperous lives for so many across much of America have been disappearing. The only way we can uplift the children and grandchildren of the working class and prepare them for a different future is by putting a renewed focus on world-class education.
Link here to see the whole article
C. Warren Moses, CEO
Tags: bailout, C. Warren Moses, Children's Aid New York City, education, Minyanville, public schools
By Children's Aid Society
When I announced my retirement earlier this year, I had one main suggestion for the committee looking for my replacement: Find someone who’s “angry.”
“Angry?” they said. “What do you mean?”
I mean that to lead one of the country’s largest child-focused charitable organizations, you have to have a fire inside you. You don’t want to hire the person who eases too comfortably into the leather seat, who likes gazing out the corner-office window. You want the person who sees the suffering of so many children, and is because it’s not getting fixed quickly enough.
I’m happy to say we’ve found that person. Richard R. Buery Jr. has committed his career to helping poor children, and therefore is no stranger to the statistics: To read the full article, link here
C. Warren Moses
Tags: C. Warren Moses, charitable organization, Children's Aid New York City, helping children, Minyanville, Richard Buery
By Children's Aid Society
You know how retailers are battling it out over the few dollars consumers are willing to spend? It’s no different in the nonprofit world. Merely grabbing a donor’s attention isn’t enough. We have to make a solid argument for why our cause is the one worthy of your hard-to-part-with dollar.
To accomplish this, nonprofits need to communicate to donors that they are adapting their programs and services to meet the changing face of need in today’s economy. For example, food pantries are now serving the redefined “house poor” – families who are using limited earnings to pay their mortgage and avoid foreclosure, and then have little money left for groceries once the mortgage has been paid.
Nonprofits also have to create forward-thinking, innovative programs that provide novel solutions to new problems To read the full article, link here
— C. Warren Moses
Tags: Children's Aid New York City, donations, food pantries, Minyanville, nonprofit
By Children's Aid Society
It’s now summer and millions of schoolchildren across the country are celebrating summer vacation.
But for many parents, summer vacation is anything but. In single-parent and 2-income households, those 2 months often mean a desperate scramble to find safe and affordable childcare.
Child care can break the bank for many of the parents of the 48 million children in the US under age 12. In each of the 50 states, monthly child care costs for 2 kids exceed median rent costs, and are as high as or higher than the average monthly mortgage payment, according to The National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies.
Child care is crucial to keeping our economy strong. Without child care, millions of Americans would be unable to work. The cost creeps up every year, and like a mortgage, it’s a set, often non-negotiable, fee. This puts a greater squeeze on negotiable necessities, such as food. For the complete article on Minyanville.com, link here
Tags: C. Warren Moses, child care, Children's Aid New York City, corporate, costs, Minyanville.com, National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies
By Children's Aid Society
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