Month: May 2015

The Power of Influence: Get Ready for MCON 2015

Posted on by Case Foundation

This post was written by Derrick Feldmann on behalf of the Case Foundation:

In 2010, Achieve and the Case Foundation began an effort to understand the dynamics between organizations and a new generation of donors and activists. Together, we established the Millennial Impact Project to fill a knowledge gap that existed in the field: How does the Millennial generation connect, involve and support causes?

This research has helped thousands of organizations and companies reach and activate this generation of do-gooders, but we didn’t want our findings to stay just on paper; we wanted to cultivate a learning experience. That is why we launched MCON in 2012, and it has since grown into the nation’s premier conference on the movements that are improving our world and how the next generation is shaping the work we do in communities across the country.

Year after year, MCON proves to be an unforgettable experience for every online and in-person attendee. Participants come from across the country to discover how the next generation is influencing their world and the way they operate within it. MCON provides the foundation for understanding today’s cause movements and how to move interest in a cause into action for a cause.

In that spirit, MCON 2015 will focus on the concept of influence. Specifically, we will explore the power of influence through “art, media business and place.” In today’s super connected world, we are constantly being influenced to act. This year, we want to understand how these four industries influence people to ‘do good’ and act on behalf of an issue. We will discuss ways to bring people together, activate the next generation and create company and organizational cultures that establish openness, accessibility and transparency.

To help the audience understand the power of influence, we’re gathering an incredible lineup of entrepreneurs, activists, artists and visionaries who are influencing others to ‘do good’.

Daniel Lubetzky, founder of KIND Snacks, will headline the first night of this two-day conference. Daniel is a pioneering social entrepreneur known in the international community for developing business models that integrate social objectives with sustainable market-driven forces. He founded KIND Healthy Snacks in 2004 with the mission of making the world a little kinder, one snack and act at a time. Today, KIND is available at more than 150,000 retailers and is the fastest-growing snack company in the U.S., and the KIND Movement has inspired nearly a million acts of kindness among its community.

In the art section, we’re highlighting designers and artists whose projects have increased awareness and inspired change. Sarah Urist Green is the creator and curator of The Art Assignment, an educational video series produced by PBS Digital Studios that introduces us to the most innovative minds in art today, practicing alternative approaches to art-making. Designer Stephen Kenn will also present on some of the ideas and works that have made him one of the most sought-after artists of our time.

This year, MCON also features several journalists and media professionals who are experts in highlighting social issues. Peter Koechley, for example, served as an editor for The Onion before co-founding Upworthy. To date, the Upworthy community has dedicated nearly 2 billion minutes of attention to important stories for a better world, ranging from the criminal justice system reform to advertising’s adverse effects on body image to clean energy.

The business session will include social entrepreneurs, companies and leaders who are transforming business models to influence social change. One speaker in this session, Daniel Jae-Won Lee, Executive Director of the Levi Strauss Foundation, will present on how his organization advances pioneering social change in the areas of HIV/AIDS, worker rights and well being, asset building and social justice in communities touched by Levi Strauss & Co.’s business.

The place session features civic and cause activists who are driving community and cultural change. Fagan Harris, CEO and President of Baltimore Corps, an organization dedicated to building a stronger Baltimore by mobilizing a new generation of leaders focused on urban renewal. We’ll also hear from the co-founder and president of the Michigan Urban Farming Initiative, Tyson Gersh. Tyson uses urban agriculture as a platform to promote education, sustainability and community to solve some of the social issues currently facing Detroit.

That just scratches what will happen at MCON this year.

You’ll want to attend MCON if you are a:

  • Cause leader seeking to change the culture of your organization and better engage a new generation of cause enthusiast.
  • Cause marketer looking to build an effective platform to move individuals from cause enthusiasm to action.
  • Cause enthusiast looking to embark on a new personal journey of social good that you haven’t yet defined.

Join us at MCON June 24-25 and discover the power of influence. There are two ways to experience this year’s event. Attend in person at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, or you can watch both days of speaker presentations online. Learn more and register at mcon.events.

Derrick Feldmann is the producer of MCON, the nation’s premier conference on Millennials and causes. He leads the research efforts for The Millennial Impact Project and serves as president of Achieve, a research and creative agency for causes.

A Fearless Approach to Ocean Conservation

Posted on by Case Foundation

Earlier this month, I found myself in a sea of sleepy-eyed millennials in a Georgetown University auditorium waiting for the first annual Sustainable Oceans Summit to begin.

The Sustainable Oceans Alliance (SOA), founded by Georgetown student and Case Foundation intern Daniela Fernandez, hosted the summit. SOA is one of the first student-led initiatives started in direct response to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s call to action at the State Department’s 2014 Our Ocean Conference. In his speech, Kerry laid out the crucial steps each of us must take to ensure the health and sustainability of our oceans.

The opening announcement quickly set the tone for the event – we were going to learn exactly how we, as individuals, could change the tide. After seven hours of remarkable speeches and panel discussions from world leaders in ocean conservation, environmental policy and earth and biological sciences, the 400 in-person and hundreds more webcast attendees were indeed invested in keeping our planet blue.

Speakers like the legendary Sylvia Earle from Mission Blue and Maria Damanaki of The Nature Conservancy eloquently illustrated the interplay between the health of our oceans and the health of humankind. “We must protect our oceans as if our life depends on it – because it does,” said Earle. “Eighty five percent of corals are already lost; eighty five percent of fish are endangered, threatened or already gone,” stated Damanaki. After a long pause to let those statistics sink in she went on, “But there is hope in this hopeless situation. Human activity is ocean’s biggest threat and biggest hope. We have the power to change the fate our planet’s lifeline.”

An important focus of the summit, and a reflection of Fernandez’s interest in identifying multi-sector solutions, was the role of three vital industries: science and technology; corporations; and local and national governments. The summit proposed that by exploring the interconnectedness of ocean health and human behavior and wellbeing, these three sectors could realize a range of opportunities for innovative collaboration. The summit provided a new platform for champions of ocean conservation to highlight these opportunities: better business practices, effective legislation and cutting edge technology. The speakers emphasized how multi-sector approaches catalyze solutions to issues such as the global fisheries crisis.

The summit attendees were asked to do more than listen, and 7,500 signatures later the audience and social media activists had successfully made their voices heard. Together, we petitioned the United Nations to include ocean sustainability as a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). SDGs are a comprehensive collection of actionable, social development goals designed to build upon the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). SDGs should holistically address social inequalities, issues of poverty and environmental concerns, and it is essential that responsible ocean management does not get left out.

Palauan Ambassador, Stuart Beck, will deliver this very petition directly to the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon prior to the September 2015 vote to confirm the SDGs. We made our mark; but if the speakers made anything clear, it was that our mission doesn’t stop here.

As the summit came to a close, I found myself in a new environment – in a sea of wide-eyed millennials in a Georgetown University auditorium. We knew that it was our responsibility to take action now. Our naturally innovative and motivated spirit must be directed toward ocean sustainability to ensure a healthy and stable environment, economy and global community for future generations to come.

 

 

Click here to watch the full Summit. 

Impact Investing Conversations Expand at Milken Institute Global Conference

Posted on by Case Foundation

This year, Case Foundation CEO, Jean Case, and team again traveled to the Milken Institute Global Conference to lead conversations about how business can contribute to solving social problems. The Milken Institute has the mission to increase global prosperity by advancing collaborative solutions that widen access to capital, create jobs and improve health, and impact investing is increasingly seen as one of those collaborative solutions that will bring new capital and talent to the social sector.

For some background on the good news from the last year in impact investing, check out Jean Case’s blog that ran the first day of the conference: “A New Inning for Impact Investing.” And take a look at Jean’s ongoing series on Medium—”5 Characteristics of Thriving Social Entrepreneurs” for even more detail on best practices for starting and growing a business that turns a profit and changes the world.

At the Global Conference, the Case Foundation and our partners–Omidyar Network and the Milken Institute–hosted a roundtable of investors and funds to talk about the great progress from the past year—including announcements of new impact practices at Bain and BlackRock, and $2 billion worth of new commitments to impact investing from investors like Prudential, McKnight Foundation, Ford Foundation and others. The group at the roundtable also discussed ongoing challenges in the field—including the need for better measurement of social impact, need for more deal flow and the need for more education for investors and advisors on risks and opportunities.

Jean also moderated a panel—Impact Investing 2.0: Finding Value in Doing Good, which focused on the range of products, asset classes and returns expectations that are available to new impact investors. She kicked off the panel by saying, “We see a new class of entrepreneurs who don’t just want to build companies for profit, they want to address a social challenge. And there’s a new class of investors across sectors that want more than just a financial return from their investments.”

It was a lively discussion featuring Kimbal Musk, founder of The Kitchen and member of Tesla’s board; Thomas Hyland from Aspada Investment Advisors; Jacqueline Novogratz from Acumen; Dimple Sahni from Anthos Asset Management and Gary White from Water.org. You can find the full video of the panel here.

Jean also joined Forbes Editor, Randall Lane, at a dinner to talk about how philanthropists can think about the opportunities that are available to them, from grants to support organizations like B Lab that are building a stronger ecosystem to high-return, for-profit investments in social enterprises and funds.

We hope you will join us as we continue the conversation with partners like the Milken Institute and others over the course of this year. As Jean said during the events at Milken, “Too often we haven’t invited businesses, and specifically entrepreneurs, to the table in solving social problems.” Impact investing presents a path forward to bring the power and talent of the market and the private sector into the business of solving some of our most pressing social challenges.

For more, watch Jean Case’s discussion with TheStreet’s Rhonda Schaffler about the growth in impact investing and why a whole new generation of tech entrepreneurs are making more investments in the space. 

Better Businesses Make Better Mothers’ Day Gifts

Posted on by Case Foundation

Here at the Case Foundation, we believe that where we shop matters, and we’re convinced that better businesses make better gifts. In an effort to help you wrap up your Mother’s Day shopping, we put together a collection of gift ideas from some of our favorite “better” businesses—companies driven to have positive social and environmental impact.

These gift ideas, curated with the help of our partners at B Lab, will fit nicely on your shopping list, while you support conscious businesses that create meaningful jobs, protect the environment and create a better world.

Happy Mother’s Day to all moms, grandmas, moms-to-be and caregivers!

Greyston Bakery – Greyston Bakery has open hiring practices to provide employment and professional development opportunities to everyone in the community.
Mom will get the satisfaction of aiding in its efforts, as well as enjoying some of their delicious baked goods.

The Honest Company – This B Corp believes that Mother’s Day is all about spoiling mom. Treat her to something indulgent from Honest Company’s pampering collection so she can enjoy a spa-like escape at home.

Dogeared – This California-based jewelry company lives by the philosophy that “what goes around comes around.” It puts this belief into practice by handcrafting pieces locally, respecting the planet and partnering with nonprofit organizations that share its vision for a better world.

A to Z Wineworks – Your wine-loving mother is sure to jump with joy when she receives a bottle from A to Z Wineworks. Its award-winning Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris are excellent not only in taste but also in their fair value and sustainability practices.

Prosperity Candle – Give Mom a hand-poured candle that smells good and does good! Each gift provides living wages to women artisans who are thriving as entrepreneurs.

Better World Books – The gift of a good book is something that never goes out of style. Give mom a novel from Better World Books, and someone in need will receive one as well.

Etsy – Are you still stumped about what to get Mom? Shop this community-based site that believes in making the world more fair, more sustainable and more fun. There are more than 1 million active shops – making it easy to find the perfect gift!

Have an idea of your own? Please share it with us on Twitter by tweeting at @CaseFoundation with the hashtag #CFBlog!

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