NEWS: Employee Volunteer Programs Help Companies Gain Competitive Advantage

Deloitte & Touche USA LLP recently conducted a survey entitled 2007 IMPACT, which studied Generation Y employees (ages 18-26) and community service. The conclusion is that Generation Y employees have a strong desire to engage in community service, and want employers to offer time and opportunities to do community service. The survey found the following:

• 62% want to work for companies that give them opportunities to engage in community service.
• 80% identify as volunteers.
• 74% state they do volunteer work to give back to the community or to fulfill a personal desire to give back.
• 82% believe volunteer work helps build leadership skills.
• 26% stated that community service engagements were mentioned at their job recruitment.

So how does your employee volunteer program stack up?

NEWS: Legislating Corporate Social Change

The next step in getting companies to create, integrate, and execute CSR practices could be congressional legislation. With bi-partisan support, S. 367, entitled “Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act” has been sponsored by Senator Dorgan [D-ND] and Senator Graham [R-SC]. The bill would allow private plaintiffs and retailers to sue corporations that engage in unfair competition and/or deceptive trade practices by receiving products from sweatshops. Furthermore, the bill would prohibit sweatshop goods from being imported into the United States. The bill would provide for monetary damages, attorney’s fees, injunctive relief, FTC investigations, and the public publishing of corporate violators. As of now, the bill has only been introduced in the Senate. Only time will decide the fate of the bill. Learn more here.

RESOURCES: WeBreatheGreen.com

As our network of contacts grows, we've recently run across several companies with super cool products and services. Not only do they make use of cutting edge technology and capitalize on the Web 2.0 social media frenzy, they also offer great ways to learn more about how people are thinking about the environment.

So with much enthusiasm, I encourage you to check out Peacock Nine and their WeBreatheGreen tool. Here's a summary from their Vice President, Leila-Scott Mitchell:

Peacock Nine is a boutique consumer research and strategy consulting firm based here in Chicago and Shanghai. Our goal is to help close the gap between companies/decision-makers and their customers/consumers so that they can place safer “bets” (product portfolio, pricing, communications, organizational strategies, etc.) that are aligned with the unmet needs of those they serve. While we conduct traditional market research (focus groups, surveys, etc.) we are also leading the revolution when it comes to creative consumer research by continually adding to and revising our suite of online research tools.

Philosophically, we are a team of creative, ravenously curious individuals who believe in helping our stakeholders fulfill their personal passions. My personal passion, for instance, is to make a positive and lasting contribution to the “Green Movement”! Our latest foray into helping our clients understand the green world is www.WeBreatheGreen.com.

WeBreatheGreen is an online community of eco-conscious individuals who are willing to share their voices regarding the “green” marketplace (product ideas, packaging preferences, best practices, messaging refinement, etc.), ultimately serving as advisors to decision-makers who understand the importance of their customer’s/consumer’s opinion. The benefit of utilizing a Customer Cabinet^TM such as WeBreatheGreen is continual access to an otherwise “expensive” sample, longitudinal data collection and consumer-driven insights for a fraction of the cost of traditional market research. In short, a community like WeBreatheGreen gives our client’s significant competitive advantage by tapping into the collective intelligence of their existing and potential customers/consumers.

I love the idea of tapping into the mind of the eco-conscious individual--what a cool way to help keep the Green Movement chugging along!