We as an industry are going to make a challenge to raise 10 million dollars in five years for all of our coffee NGOs. Together we will make a greater impact. Together we will feed farmers, educate children, save lives, make loans, increase commerce, balance wellness for all stakeholders from tree to cup. Are you in?

Applaud the Results!

Profits 4 Purpose embraces next century technology. This simple tool for charitable giving and reporting will:

2. Provide an easy-to-use reporting tool that provides key metrics in real time

There is no doubt that companies and organizations support their community for the positive impact it has on their brand and reputation. While they do good work for a variety of reasons — they know it’s the right thing to do and it fosters a better environment for their employees — they also want to be able to publically take credit for their efforts. There’s nothing wrong with that, but sometimes this is easier said than done.

When your charitable giving is spread across multiple spreadsheets and software tools, it can be harder to get all the data in one place than it was to do the good works in the first place. Some large corporations report actually paying an outside agency just to compile the data into one huge spreadsheet. Then it is still up to someone to crunch the numbers and try to translate it all into understandable stories to share.

Profits 4 Purpose collects all the information into one place from the beginning…the events, the time, the grants, the products and the services. Reporting is flexible and ad hoc. Create the report you need on the spot. No special skills are required and all reports can easily be printed or shared.

The nimble and semi-customizable nature of the software design allows a company to decide what information is important to them, such as comparisons by locations or departments. They can identify those variables when they first decide how they want their platform configured, or add them later as they better define their needs. It’s easy to get to the core of their efforts and applaud the results. They collect exactly what information they need and then can analyze it based on the truth.

Real metrics. Real Stories. No “data washing!”

Profits 4 Purpose embraces next century technology. This easy-to-use tool for charitable giving and reporting will:

1.   Increase efficiency. Save time and money by using simple web technology.

Giving back to the community is not new for many companies. Altruistic and forward-thinking organizations have been supporting community and non-profit causes for a long time. What is new is how they do…or how they should.

Small and large companies alike that started their social responsibilities early used whatever tools they had at the time to implement their charitable giving and tracking activities. From hand-written ledgers and sign-up sheets to more modern forms of communications and data entry, a lot has already changed. But new cloud-based technologies that allow ubiquitous access and powerful data organizing capabilities are revolutionizing company operations. And community support it positioned to greatly benefit from these efficiencies.

Today it seems the majority of community-active organizations with socially responsible program and reporting goals still use Excel, Access and e-mails to promote, track and report their impact. They were the modern trappings of the day, not too long ago. Now, compared with what can be available, these are antiquated, cumbersome and time-consuming tools that belong to a different era.

Not everyone responsible for promoting community giving and then tracking the impact is an “Excel nerd.” Not everyone has the time or skills to do the extra work that it takes to just understand and communicate their impact, never mind collecting the data from multiple spreadsheets and emails just to get it in one place before they can even begin the number crunching! Implementing the giving programs is hard enough. Why spend more time and effort (translation: money) dealing with the data?

Profits 4 Purpose is a powerful, yet simple tool that allows them to easily measure their impact, translate that information into powerful stories to receive credit where due and ultimately inspire others to greater levels of giving. That what it’s all supposed to be about.

Rather than being a slave to the software, isn’t it better to focus on actually making the impact?

To support our global clients, Profits 4 Purpose has been translated into 15 languages. Employees from China to Chile are empowered to join forces and help their local communities. Great for large multinational corporations you may be thinking, but what difference does that make here in the United States? We all speak English…right?

Well…actually, we all don’t.

According to Wikipedia, “Tagalog and Vietnamese have over one million speakers each in the United States, almost entirely within recent immigrant populations. Both languages, along with the varieties of the Chinese language, Japanese, and Korean, are now used in elections in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Illinois, New York, Texas, and Washington.”

Those same recent immigrant populations are often the same people who can most use the community support offered to them by local companies and organizations. If you have a community outreach program intended for a Chinese or Latin American neighborhood, doesn’t it make sense to offer your assistance in their language?

We can’t say it often enough, our mission is to help everyone help each other. The first step is to make it easy.

Here are our languages–

English
Spanish
Chinese
Taiwanese
French
Italian
Polish
Dutch
Nederlands
Norwegian
Finnish
Danish
Swedish
Portuguese
French Canadian

A common question we get is “what’s the big deal of having all the nonprofits in one place? Can’t we just go directly to the nonprofit and make the donation?”

The answer is that it’s easier and more efficient to have a central repository. Think about going to a grocery store rather than making different trips to a meat market, a fruit stand and a liquor store. You save time and can browse among all the products to find what’s best for you.

Profits 4 Purpose features the ‘Nonprofit Partners” section, a convenient location for all the nonprofits that the organization supports. They can be selected based on how they line up with company interests, those that historically have been supported, or as suggestions from employees.

Browsing is encouraged. Users can search based on their personal interests. Looking for a nonprofit where your children are welcome to help too? Select the Family Friendly option. Looking to add some personal enrichment while you’re on that far-away vacation? Refine your location and learn what’s available locally.

Our mission is to help everyone help each other. The first step is to make it easy.

Many of the largest companies in the world are very active in supporting the local communities in which they do business. But too many of them are doing so in old-fashioned and inefficient ways. It’s not their fault.

The more altruistic and socially responsible the company, the earlier they likely began their community support. They implemented employee volunteer programs and community engagement practices with the tools that they had at the time. Typically those were Excel spreadsheets, Access databases and email. What were innovative techniques then, are cumbersome, time-consuming artifacts today.

The result? Somewhere in those giant organizations is an overworked and usually small department of people responsible for overseeing community impact around the world. They work hard and know what they are doing is important, but does it have to be that tedious? The answer of course is no.

At Track the Impact, our very largest clients were the easiest to close once we found that point of pain. In addition to making their lives easier, we actually save their companies money by providing a better, more efficient platform to encourage and track community engagement.

Do you know a point of pain? Do them a favor, and send them this post.

In his Huffington Post article, “Entrepreneurship—Completing the Circle,” Suren Dutia remind us that most accomplished entrepreneurs owe at least some of their success to the foundation of society that allowed them to excel.  Given that, he believes that “success is like a circle and people should pass the benefits of success forward to make the world a better place.”  He goes on to say that  “entrepreneurs embody traits that are ideal for addressing social needs, such as leadership, vision, the ability to attract talented people, drive, focus, perseverance, self-confidence, optimism, competitiveness and ambition.”  Leveraging these talents can indeed positively impact our society for the better.

Mr. Dutia also encourages entrepreneurs to give back in philanthropic ways as well through donations and grants. When he asked one successful gentleman why he gave back, the answer was ”I have all the money I require and now I want to spend my time and energy on helping others, my health and be happy.”

Philanthropy may be just the ticket! As reported by Gretchen Rubin in The Happiness Boomerang, “research shows that people who aid the causes they value tend to be happier and in better health, and that they show fewer signs of physical and mental aging.”  So Mr. Dutia’s successful friend may be doing just the thing to ensure his health and happiness.

The Peers Network in San Diego embodies the ideals of entrepreneurs giving back. Their mission is “to give back to the San Diego community by helping enhance and improve philanthropic pursuits while providing a network to encourage entrepreneurship.” In reviewing photos from their activities, you see many smiling faces, and obviously they are enjoying themselves. It makes you wonder; maybe their motivation in giving back is really so they will be happy!

Are you generous? Are you sure? Do others think you’re generous? What exactly does that mean? Interesting questions that many of us have probably never asked ourselves before.

The Generosity Plan was written by Kathy LeMay, founder, president, and CEO of Raising Change, which helps organizations raise capital to advance social change agendas. She wrote it in 2009, at the very height of the Great Recession, when spirits were low and falling lower. Hardly a person was left untouched, and the nonprofit community felt the cumulative brunt of it all. People had less for themselves and thus many believed, less for others.

Kathy LeMay looks at it differently. To her every one of us is a philanthropist. The key is to figure out how philanthropy and thus generosity can be planned and managed so that it complements your life, not complicates it.

The book is an easy-to-read, short handbook on how to develop a personal generosity plan that helps you connect with the causes that are most important to you and then identify exactly how you can personally help in a manner that works best for you. It’s filled with examples from real people, and you are likely to find some that resonate with you.

Whether you buy the book and develop a generosity plan or not, her message can be embraced by all of us. Offered first by Teddy Roosevelt, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” It’s beautiful in its simplicity.

The Good Company Index ranks the Fortune 100 companies based on each one’s actions with respect to their employers, customers, and as a steward of the community and environment. They each are assigned a Good Company grade, from A to F.

This past Labor Day, the founders of Good Company contributed an interesting commentary to the U-T San Diego. They found a fascinating correlation between Good Company grades and stock performance. “In the 24 months after the index was created, companies that earned a full letter grade or higher than their industry peers on the index – in other words, those that behaved better – outperformed those competitors by an average of 30 percentage points.”

While in keeping with the theme of Labor Day, the authors focused primarily on the how the companies treated their employees, we at Track the Impact think much of the reflection in the stock market may also have been due to their impact on the community. The 2011 Cone/Echo Global CR Opportunity Study concluded that 81 percent of the global population now expects companies to have an active role in social and environmental issues. Consumers vote with their wallets, not only in purchasing these companies’ products, but also through their investments.

When a company considers the business case for doing good, the first place to start looking may be its stock price.

At the very least, it may give you pause the next time you choose a stock. You just may want to check the Good Company Index first.