Agenda

• 7:15 - 8:00: Guest speaker: Elliott Brown
• 8:00 - 8:15: theory of change analysis of Teach for America
• 8:15 - 8:40: small group discussions of theory of change for issue of your choice
• 8:40 - 9:00: small groups present to larger class

Class Notes

Elliott Brown – CEO Springboard Forward

- Stanford student, decided wanted to do “change the world” activity (public service)
- Worked for Sun Microsystems Foundation (want to see what sorts of programs out there, and how companies approach their philanthropy and evaluate organizations)
- Worked in EPA (saw a lot of institutional inefficiencies, social problems)
- Disconnect between companies and non-profits in transitional employment
- Corporations didn’t want to call non-profits for employment references
- Springboard (original): for-profit staffing agency (got people from non-profits employed, operated on margins generated by service fees)
- Believed EPA’s population’s main problem was a lack of hope (without hope, people wouldn’t be motivated to use any services available to them anyways)
- Moved to non-profit to be market-driven and able to receive philanthropy (learned from being for-profit in order to succeed as non-profit)
- Staffing venture made money, but career development didn’t make money
- Traditional non-profits don’t have resources to scale nationally from local level
- Value proposition: asks people what they want, what they are good at, etc. in order to best place them (and create plans to achieve that goal)
- Create vision for each person and a pathway to get there . . . then get there via employee benefit program
- Create business value via making happy and motivated workers · Employee engagement (i.e. work survey: gets workers motivated (often workers interfacing with customers are the least well paid and least motivated)
- Non-profit sector: fewer incentives to scale (foundations like to see results and are only willing to spend on good ones based )
- 15% operating budget from earned income, 65% from foundations, the rest from individuals
- No credibility if you don’t know “what it’s like out there” . . . so “get out there”!
- Need to create incentives for people to keep in touch after process of career development
- Poverty more of a mindset than economic state (i.e. some Stanford students live as if in poverty, but one wouldn’t approach them in that sort of way)
- Carol Dweck (psychology): author of Mindset (how people view their actions based on mindset)
- Therefore, need to change people’s mindset and correlate it with promotions, etc.
- Career mapping
- Nine Steps to Clarity: ask questions to figure out what people like, and how they are motivated
- Mindset in social services: need to help people do things (but EB’s philosophy is to make people take responsibility for finding and taking their own path and do it themselves with coaching only)
- When you are on the other side of charity, you are a charity-case (but EB wants to empower people)
- Additionally, manager’s role not just to get people in to work, but more than that to motivate them to work well (via encouragement, etc.)
- Relationship with manager: number one reason for employment turnover
- EB “stands up on chairs, tells people what to do, and if he doesn’t like what they hear, he tells them to shut up”

Theory of Change Exercise

Topic: College party waste Long-term goal: Reduction of waste, more active recycling efforts
Preconditions:
- Students need to be willing to be more conservation-minded
- Action: Awareness of importance of conservation via email
- Measurement: How much “trash” at end of night vs. “recycled” material
- Measurement: Response book of party-goers
- Increased availability of recyclable cups
- Action: Bring your own cup policy, find someone willing subsidize sustainable cups
- Measurement: Evaluate financial burden on organization (how much assumed by others) . . . is a commitment to sustainability fiscally sustainable for these organizations
- Student awareness of recycling importance, and opportunity to recycle
- Drunk people will still need to know how/where to properly dispose of waste
- Action: Place recycle bins EVERYWHERE for people
- Measurement: Look at how well sorted compost or recycle bins are at end of night
- Sufficient party planning to get discarded materials into proper disposal space
- Possibly encourage people to bring their own beverage containers

Assignment due 3/4

In week 9 we will discuss socially responsible business/corporate social responsibility and the mainstreaming of social movements, using environmental sustainability as a case study. Focus especially on the motivations of corporations, and the ethics & effectiveness of their actions.

• read one of the following articles:

• Green is the Color of Money: Separating fact from fiction in the world of corporate greenwashing by Amanda Witherell, GOOD Magazine (6 pgs)
  • analyzes several corporations' green campaigns and their varying motivations & effectiveness; includes PG&E, Clif Bar, & Whole Foods
    
• The Green Machine by Marc Gunther, Fortune Magazine (10 pgs)
  • discusses Wal-Mart's decision to go green
    
• post a reading question and be prepared to lead the class in discussing it

• further reading
  • interview with Paul Rice of Transfair USA by Britt Bravo, Have Fun*Do Good
    
    • mainstreaming from the perspective of an NGO partnering with corporations to sell fair trade products; section on Starbucks particularly pertinent
  • Just Good Business, The Economist
    • introduction article to a special report section on corporate social responsibility in the Economist; many of the other articles are also quite informative
      
  • Making the Case for Corporate Social Responsibility by David Cavett-Goodwin, CulturalShifts
    
    • interesting frameworks for separating out different motivations and strategies in CSR; uses Sara-Lee, Starbucks, and The Body Shop as case studies