Leveraging business community investment to enhance local inclusion

Transcription

1 Leveraging business community investment to enhance local inclusion Moritz Blanke Project Manager UPJ INCLUDE International Multipliers Workshop Berlin, 20 May 2010 INCLUDE is co-financed by the European Commission

2 context approach partners context: Growing awareness of the importance to include CSR activities as a powerful resource for skills development, employability, social inclusion and innovation in addressing societal challenges at the local level approach: Provide local intermediaries with support that helps them to involve business in innovative cross-sectoral partnerships partners:

3 Activities Very action oriented project that provides intermediaries with research findings on good practices, hands-on tools as well as guidance and personal assistance in the implementation of new projects Practice-based Research Long list of good practices Collection of case studies Typology of models Transfer & Dissemination How-to guide 3 transfer projects Multipliers workshop Accompanying Measures (microsites, conference presentations, etc.)

4 Long list of good practices & collection of case studies More than 150 good examples from 32 countries on how intermediaries can include business into cross-sectoral partnerships at the local and regional level were collected and analysed 11 successful models were described as in-depth case studies Case studies include programmes which e.g. assist youth with special needs to earn abilities for a decent job encourage female early school leavers to return to education and offer job training provide training for socially marginalized groups excluded from labour market because of their ethnicity raise awareness on climate change and the importance of environmental protection promote a better mutual understanding between business and NPOs to overcome existing mistrust and lay the ground for further co-operation incorporate stand-alone instalments of SME community investment into networks and build up bundled efforts to tackle risks of demographic change

5 Typology of successful models At least 6 different types of programmes to get business to tackle community challenges Types differ regarding e.g. Aim Time horizon Target group in the business sector Geographical scope (local or regional) Critical mass of business needed Extend of experience of the intermediary and resources needed Difficulty of implementation Opportunities for personal encounter Creating strategic platforms Hybrid types Awards Tackling a specific social issue Creating platforms for capacity building Strategic partnerships will only be successful with a bottom up approach

6 Transfer projects in South-East Europe Challenge: Good examples usually can t be simply copied to new locations The local settings needed to be taken into account e.g. social and economical infrastructure community needs existing programmes access to resources / funding National partners developed an adapted concept and business plan 3 projects initiated and launched in: Slovakia Serbia Romania

7 Transfer project in Serbia SMart kolektiv decided to implement an annual Action Day (creating personal encounters) in Niš Context: Especially outside of the capitol city Belgrade the ideas on how business could help in solving community problems, besides giving financial donations, are quite new Aim: Raise awareness on benefits of cross-sectoral partnerships. Provide local business, NPOs, public authorities with a low-threshold opportunity to volunteer and gain more practical experiences Activities: research on the local settings in Niš communication and recruitment of participating organisations including SME suppliers of large companies matching supply and demand prepare and run the Action Day in summer 2010 (at least 100 volunteers expected) evaluation

8 Transfer project in Slovakia Pontis Foundation decided to implement a regional platform for capacity building in Bratislava Context: Business in Bratislava already gained experiences in volunteering and partnering with NPOs during the Action Day Our Bratislava Aim: Provide experienced business with an more elaborated opportunity to invest their core competencies and skills. Increase the organisational capacity of local NPOs to help them to enhance effectiveness of their work Activities: research in NPOs to find their needs workshops for NPOs to help them express their needs common meetings of business and NPOs to decide on issues to be addressed (theme changes on a 2-year basis e.g. education, family) development of an online-database to match supply and demand business deliver trainings for NPOs in areas such as IT, accounting, finance, law, HR

9 Transfer project in Romania Asociata pentru Relatii Comunitare (ARC) decided to follow a hybrid model with elements of encounter, addressing a special societal challenge and a strategic platform Context: High-school teenagers in Cluj Napoca and Bucharest are interested to explore informal education. Employees want to volunteer to use these experiences as ways for their own personal and professional development Aim: Create a group of 3-5 companies, which involve their employees in corporate volunteering programs related to teenagers workforce inclusion Activities: internal planning and preparation of training materials training for employees about mentoring common session of employees and teenagers e.g. to understand what it means to start a career teenagers visit companies / implementation of an one-day project evaluation

10 Visit our microsites

11 Thank you Moritz Blanke