Leaving a Lasting Impression
By Michael Pinchera
From team-building events encouraging sustainable business to promotion of voluntourism and growing a community's future one attendee at a time, companies and destinations are using corporate social responsibility (CSR) to create a profound impact on communities and the industry worldwide.
LITERALLY BUILDING A COMMUNITY
The Foundation – CEED
The Community Enhancement Educational Design (CEED) Foundation brings together volunteers, industry experts and resources to assist small, disadvantaged communities while creating a model for self-sustainability that addresses many worldwide problems.
In October 2007, CEED founders Dan and Ruthie Moller began volunteering financial and consulting help to La Academia Internacional de Cabrera (AIC) and other community programs in Cabrera, Dominican Republic, per their expertise—Dan is a fund manager, and Ruthie is a veteran educator.
Including corporate sponsorships and individual contributions, CEED's primary source of income derives from its Vacation for a Purpose program.
The Program – Vacation for a Purpose
Through Vacation for a Purpose, business and leisure groups investing time and energy in Cabrera can receive discounted or donated accommodations at the 20,000-square-foot, 10-bedroom Flor de Cabrera luxury beachfront property. Even without dedicating sweat equity to the community, groups still help by booking Flor de Cabrera, as 100 percent of property rental rates beyond operating costs go to CEED.
Individual reasons for visiting Cabrera vary greatly—in general the purpose for most groups is a hybrid of relaxing vacation, professional meetings and extensive community service projects.
Strategies and Objectives – A Sustainable Community
Groups wishing to support the Cabrera community through CEED volunteer for work that relates to their own expertise and ability just as the Moller's did originally—from English lessons to designing sustainable buildings.
Dan Moller says the goal is to integrate visitors into the program by letting them share their own talents.
CEED's goals for the community are three-tiered and focus on 1) project-based education, 2) job and social skill proficiency, personal empowerment and adaptation and 3) building a "green" self-sustainable school for the community. Their current plans are to improve the AIC—an abandoned discotheque that was converted into a small school in a project funded by local businesses—until a new school facility can be provided.
"The school's growth will be designed by the needs of the community," Dan Moller said.
Recently, CEED donated Flor de Cabrera to a group of visiting professors from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the Monterey (Calif.) Institute of International Studies.
"Our programs are designed to help teachers foster children into productive, caring community members that understand how to protect the community while learning job skills that match his/her personal interests," Dan Moller said. "[However] the main purpose of the summit was to assess the students from the AIC and teachers in the area. This evaluation allowed us to understand the level of education on the island."
Conclusion – Cabrera Takeaways
Group visitors to Cabrera are already seeing the real impact they can make to the community by giving of themselves. After the aforementioned group's visit, a couple of the educators committed to returning for an extended length of time, according to Vacation for a Purpose Spokesman Lawrence Johnson.
Following a visit to Flor de Cabrera, a family group says they discussed the direct impact of their volunteering and the wonderful experiences had in Cabrera for weeks afterward. As a result, they feel compelled to continue helping the Cabrera community and enquire about needed school supplies.
PUSHING VOLUNTOURS
The Tourism Board – JTB
The Jordan Tourism Board (JTB) launched in March 1998 as an independent, public private-sector partnership to brand, position and promote Jordan as a cultural, natural, religious, adventure, leisure and MICE destination.
The Project – National Voluntourism Promotion
The JTB began promoting voluntourism in late 2006 to connect event planners with companies that organize CSR activities and provide additional contacts for groups to volunteer directly.
Strategies and Objectives – Serving Guests and Residents
"There's a big demand for voluntourism," said Tania Ghossein, communications officer for JTB North America, adding that modern travel is about expanding horizons.
The JTB saw multiple positives with voluntourism. It provides Jordan's growing tourism market with a greater range of offerings, and it helps to serve the societal needs that exist in Jordan. Ghossein says it works because Jordanian communities are accessible and open to foreign cultures.
Volunteering, especially internationally, increases awareness, evokes touching sentimentality of our shared humanity and bestows moral satisfaction upon groups who want to get involved and give back to communities in which they've been welcomed. It's a great feeling when you can incorporate something noble and altruistic into any part of your life, business or leisure, Ghossein says.
The JTB's ultimate goal is to build bridges between cultures and encourage greater tolerance, she says, and the range of CSR options in Jordan can help build personal connections.
Work well with children? Adopt a child for a day or help improve the English skills of young Bedouins. Environmental causes tugging at your heartstrings? Plant olive trees or help with the local olive harvest (depending on the season). Graphically talented visitors may contribute to city beautification efforts and illustrate or paint city walls. Old and sacred buildings need love, too. Try cleaning and maintaining old churches and mosques throughout the country to assist in that endeavor. Volunteer professional services such as fundraiser organization, copyediting and writing grant proposals are also sought after by non-governmental organizations in Amman, the nation's capital.
The JTB connects groups to socially responsible organizations that offer these options and more, from the Dead Sea to Petra and beyond. The possibilities are endless—it just depends how groups want to help, Ghossein says.
Conclusion – On the Right Track
"We are working with organizations and tour operators to expand the voluntourism concept even more. It is part of our future marketing plans," Ghossein said, noting that the JTB is not just promoting group CSR options simply to follow market trends. "[Voluntourism] is something increasingly incorporated in our activities, and the more we see the great feedback and the results generated, the more we are motivated and convinced that this is the right track. Today we are investing our efforts in this more than ever."
And as a result, the JTB has seen an increase in voluntourism from meeting and incentive groups, she says, a trend that is getting stronger.
"Not only have we seen the increase, but things are changing in Jordan," Ghossein said. "People that come and volunteer, for example, are adopting kids and paying for their tuition or [medical] treatment. Although they come to volunteer for a few hours, the effect is long term."
BUSY BEES GIVING BACK TO THE HIVE
Teambuilding – Impact 4 Good
Founded in 2005 by an event industry pro and a globe-trotter from the non-profit, community service world, East Hanover, N.J.-based Impact 4 Good aims to "bring community service to the ballroom," according to Executive Director Alan Ranzer.
With prior community service experience throughout the Americas, Asia and the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Ranzer proudly supports communities and implements Impact 4 Good activities worldwide.
"An instrumental component of our work is to respect ethical values, people, communities and the environment, while introducing corporate employees to local cultures and communities," according to Impact 4 Good's mission statement.
The Event – Charles Schwab Beehive Building
Three hundred of Charles Schwab's top salespeople on an incentive trip in Montego Bay, Jamaica, recently experienced a team-building activity that gave back to the community and grew participant understanding and enjoyment of the sights and sounds of the Caribbean island.
Strategies and Objectives – Team Investment
The message behind the socially responsible team-building component to the incentive trip was to help develop local sustainability in a way that supports the Charles Schwab ideal, "help everyone become financially fit."
To accomplish this, Impact 4 Good implemented their beehive-building program—working with a local bee farmers association to help individual bee farmers become more financially sound and sustainable.
For this, attendees were split into teams and a "queen bee" assigned to each. Studying a treasure map of the resort, the "queen bee" interpreted directions via "waggle dance"—sort of like charades—to locations spread across the property. Bee passports were stamped as participants arrived at each location, and full passports were exchanged for the materials necessary to construct a beehive. Completed hives were donated to a local bee farmers association.
Bee farmers and the president of their local association were on hand to educate participants about the process of bee farming and otherwise provide for a more complete social experience. To sweeten the deal, each participant was also given a jar of honey made locally from the group of beekeepers they were helping.
Conclusion – Conundrum Resolution
The event ran smoothly, without any special problems (there were no bees present)—but, Ranzer says, finding the perfect match of client and beneficiary is always the main challenge.
The community conundrum—how to present a ballroom- or resort-based community-service experience that retains the community-service feel—was resolved by bringing in bee farmers to work side-by-side with the participants.
Working with the community in the beehive construction also succeeded in giving participants a truly unique incentive travel experience. Attendee comments revealed an appreciation for the CSR component of their trip to Jamaica: "Great to see things going back to the community" and "I'm so proud that we are able to come together to help others become independent." In that, Ranzer sees success: Impact 4 Good unveiling the human passion of community service.
RESPONSIBILITY OF THE GREENEST KIND
The Green Event Sustainability Consultant – The Innovolve Group
Founded in 2002, the Toronto-based Innovolve Group is a sustainability consulting, communications and events firm dedicated to a greener future.
Innovolve Group Co-Founder and Vice President of Operations Rose Swagemakers leads the company's "Meeting the World" division and has managed a variety of green and sustainable events.
The Event – The Green Building Festival
The purpose of the two-day-long Green Building Festival in Toronto was to educate and inspire the 800 to 900 builders, planners, developers, architects, designers, academics and policy makers in attendance to promote and support more environmentally sound and energy-efficient buildings in Canada.
Strategies and Objectives – CSR to the Max
"The Green Building Festival is a platform to discuss how to improve the environmental performance of buildings—the broader personal scope and commitment is sustainability," Swagemakers said. "By incorporating environmental and CSR issues we were meeting the demands of our clients, audiences and our own (Innovolve's) operating philosophy."
Swagemakers says it's important to show delegates how a conference can be done in a more sustainable and socially responsible manner without negatively impacting the actual experience. Ideally this contributes to ideas, inspiration and motivation that attendees take with them from the event.
Among the event's CSR elements was a sustainability statement—a "good" index, if you will—that named event suppliers and how they helped mitigate environmental and social impacts associated with the festival.
Environmentally friendly suppliers provided green energy, organic and locally sourced food, waterless printing and fair trade items. And the event worked with socially minded suppliers that support recent immigrant women and children and employment and training outreach programs for homeless and at-risk youth. The educational outreach also extended to the building industry itself, with students from building programs across Canada urged to volunteer at the event, Swagemakers says.
"In return for one day of volunteering, they received [among other perks] one complimentary day of conference sessions to educate themselves on the latest innovations and research with regards to green buildings," she said.
Also for educational purposes, the trade show was open to the public and displayed the Sustainable Condo, "a 1,000-square-foot interactive presentation suite that promotes innovative, sustainable building design and highlights cutting-edge products, systems and technologies that are making buildings and homes more sustainable and energy efficient."
Conclusion – A Growing Responsible Appetite
Attendees were impressed with the healthy food choices, Swagemakers says, and they loved seeing that more green and CSR components are further penetrating the mainstream market.
"Hopefully, each green or CSR event inspires delegates to demand more when it comes to incorporating [these elements] into the events they attend and their personal lives," she said.
As far as Swagemakers is concerned, the CSR elements definitely helped make for a successful event.
"[They] created an alignment between the content topic, the audience's personal sustainability conviction and the Innovolve brand," she said.
The only direction in which Innovolve can go now is toward the light—the green light, that is. Even though she knows it's possible, and for the sake of Innovolve must be betting on the continued demand, Swagemakers wonders, "how can we continue to take CSR and green to the next level when it comes to creating a successful event?"
MICHAEL PINCHERA is associate editor for One+.