Tag Archives: shared value

Heifer and Partners Will Go Farther Together

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Editor’s note: The following guest post is from Heifer International Corporate and Foundation Relations Account Executive, Suzanne Munson.

Current and potential corporate partners from around the globe gathered December 11th to attend Heifer’s flagship sustainability and corporate social responsibility summit: Beyond the Bottom Line: Creating Shared Value Through Partnership.

Partnership Summit

Left to Right: Cindy Jones Nyland, Heifer International EVP of Marketing and Resource Development; Margaret Coady, Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy Director; John Elkington, Volans Founding Partner and Executive Chairman; Carol Moore, Heifer Corporate and Foundation Relations Senior Account Executive; and Marleen New, Heifer Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations. Photo by Dero Sanford, courtesy of Heifer International.

The event, held at Heifer’s headquarters in Little Rock, featured welcome remarks from Governor Mike Beebe, who said that while he may never know people that Heifer International helps, they are real human beings who can’t do it without Heifer and Heifer in turn can’t do it without the corporate partners attending the conference.

“Everyone here has a give back mentality and one person can make a difference, one life at a time, one family at a time,“ said Beebe.

His comments set the tone for the day-long collaboration between corporate partners, fellow NGOs, thought leaders and Heifer staff.

Barry Bryant, Dahab Associates, Inc. Managing Director. Photo by Dero Sanford, courtesy of Heifer International.

Long-time Heifer corporate partners Elanco (Eli Lilly’s Animal Health Division) Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Danone and Garnet Hill convened to share their experiences, advice and business cases for why they’ve chosen to commit resources, funding and staff knowledge to help end hunger and poverty around the world.

Jean-Christophe Laugee, Social Innovation and Ecosystem Director for Danone, presented a session on “Supply Chain Collaboration: New, Inclusive Sourcing Partnerships to Develop Sustainable Food Chains and Brand Equity,” which in simpler terms means Danone was experiencing a dairy sourcing problem in Ukraine, and Heifer’s smallholder farmers were able to provide the solution. By marrying responsible, sustainable supply chain needs with Heifer’s project partners in the field, a win-win collaboration ensured smallholder dairy farmers could lift themselves (and their families) out of poverty by connecting to a steady market demand for their milk.

Rick Peyser, Director of Social Advocacy and Supply Chain Community Outreach for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and Kevin Watkins, Advisor, Elanco Knowledge Solutions, shared the stage to discuss the importance (and challenges) of tracking tangible results out in the field. While both agreed it’s often difficult to track progress in remote, technologically challenged-areas, concrete evidence presented to shareholders proves companies’ strategic investments are producing results – for their bottom line as well as for struggling, impoverished farmers around the world.

Although issues surrounding hunger and poverty clearly cannot be tackled during a one-day summit, it can be agreed it will take the collective might of many players: corporations, NGOs, governments and private donors to truly put an end to hunger and poverty. As the old African proverb states, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

Partners for a Better Future

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So often my colleagues and I travel to meet with potential partners that will help Heifer International fulfill its mission of ending hunger and poverty while caring for the Earth. This week, however, Heifer hosted our first corporate partnership conference, attended by representatives from companies such as Green Mountain, Danone, ELANCO, Wal-Mart, PepsiCo, Acxiom, Novus and many more.

Each company brought a unique perspective to the gathering, with the unified belief that truly sustainable development requires collaboration across sectors, among organizations and between individuals.

Passing on the Gift Ceremony in Bangladesh

Women in Bangladesh participating in Passing on the Gift Ceremony. Photograph by Geoff Bugbee, courtesy of Heifer International.

I know we are all aware of the challenges the world faces – hunger, poverty, resource scarcity, climate change, social unrest… and the list goes on and on. But I know, and I am driven by, the fact that it is imperative to quickly increase our impact to help more families than ever before. While Heifer has a proven model, we cannot do this work alone.

With these businesses, we explored the opportunities and obstacles of public -private partnerships. We also discussed emerging trends and best practices in corporate philanthropy, cause-related marketing, employee engagement and impact measurement.

We were pleased to welcome John Elkington as our keynote speaker for this event. John is a founding partner and executive chairman of Volans. John shared with conference participants how current shifts and pressures are forcing transformation of thinking in corporations, governments, NGOs, etc. Social entrepreneurs are pushing the boundaries of traditional markets and thinking: they are lighting a path that benefits not just a few stakeholders or the company, but also the communities and environment in which it operates.

Three key themes surfaced throughout the discussions: shared value, social capital and scale. Shared value means companies engaging in practices and operations that not only support the competitiveness of the company, but at the same time benefit the social and economic conditions of the communities in which it operates. It means placing a market value on societal issues.

Promotion of Food Sovereignty Honduras. Photograph by

Women in Honduras processing cashews. Photo by Russell Powell, courtesy of Heifer International.

I have written about social capital in one of my previous blog posts. The World Bank defines social capital as the institutions, relationships, networks and norms that underpin and shape the social interactions and well-being of communities and societies. When we talk about levels of trust in business and government, community involvement and civic engagement, we are talking about social capital.

Promotion of Food Sovereignty Honduras

Cashews from Honduras. Photograph by Russell Powell, courtesy of Heifer International.

At Heifer, building and leveraging social capital is an indispensable component of our community-based, holistic development model and a pillar of our Theory of Change. As we think about the intersection between values-based and market-driven development, social capital is an essential concept to grasp. Our nearly 70 years of experience have proven that, without social capital, development efforts are simply not sustainable.

The final key theme that emerged during our conversations was scale. Transformational change is required, and that means all of us—business, government, NGOs—must accelerate and scale up our work. We have already begun to incorporate scale into our project work, which can be seen in Nepal’s “Goat’s Give Back” project.

I am pleased Heifer brought so many different players together to discuss how we can work in collaboration to change the lives of so many families in need. I know good things are to come!