First steps...

On Tuesday, we had a quick pre-Christmas drink.

Oliver, Mike, Ben and I met in a great bar near Marble Arch to discuss our respective Christmas plans, and the goals for the steering group in 2010.

I'm so glad we have such great minds working on this, and it was great to see how thinking from different businesses (retail, online and telecoms) is so well aligned. Our objectives are clearer as well: not only will we be able to identify the fundamental principles of a great third/private sector partnership, we are also going to provide a matching service, where we will be able to introduce businesses to like-minded, third sector leaders whose objectives are aligned.

These practical, genuinely useful outputs will ensure the group is an effective force for change and delivery, rather than the 'talking shops' that are all too common in the area of CSR and business engagement with third sector.

We will meet for the first time on 10th Feb, and I will be announcing the date for the forum meeting in the New Year. There are a few ground rules that we also discussed on what we want from these larger meetings.

1. The forum is to facilitate a meeting of equals. Third or private sector, there will be no favouritism at all.
2. As much as possible, representation should be even - we will make sure there are as many business leaders as third sector.
3. Pre-conceptions must be left at the door. If you are going to come, prepare for the fact that someone might change your mind.
4. Come armed. Everyone attending must have something to offer each other. Whether this is advice, a story of how partnerships have worked or not in the past or personal access/connections to people/organisations other members may be looking for, it will be valued by the individuals and whole group alike.

If we can keep to these rough guidelines, I am confident that this can be successful and generate new thinking on sustainable business.

I'm still trying to come up with a 'strap-line' - harder than it sounds. Not sure how to fit everything we want to accomplish into a pithy, funny, serious, new, ground-breaking and genuinely interesting sentence, but I will most certainly try!

On other areas of work - I am very interested in the debate on whether legislation should be created around sustainability. Some argue that it should be entirely voluntary, and that putting some laws around it may curtail or restrict the activity of the really progressive practitioners. This maybe so. I wonder, though, if something could be said to encourage diversity in terms of the range of charities supported by corporations. A quick survey around an office of 50 people will generate around 60 national, health focused charities that staff have a connection with. Some businesses have some real imagination and look very carefully at who they support, others go with perhaps the 'easy' route? This is a very difficult point to make, as all of them are fundamentally 'good' causes. So what can we do? I think there are a great many things businesses can do when deciding on a potentially large investment (time or money) to the third sector:

ACEVO currently leads the ImpACT coalition, a partnership between around 300 third sector orgs in the UK. The coaltion exists to improve accountability, clarity and transparency of third sector orgs. A very clever title, although one would receive no criticism from me if the words 'trite' or 'a little too on-the-nose' or 'too smart for its own good' were used to describe the name. Very clever marketing people with a considerable amount of time have clearly been at work here.

Anyway, they are doing some excellent work, and should be consulted by businesses who are struggling to ask the right questions during their due-diligence periods. Liam Cranley, ACEVO's Head of ImpACT, is best placed to advise on how to assess the effectiveness of charities. CEO pay, spend on overheads, and a range of subjects that can be rather incendiary are dealt with by Liam from an extremely informed position.

One day left before hols now, although I will return to work very briefly on Monday to be taken for Christmas drinks by one of the many contacts I have made this year. They are a company who specialise in communications, and have been working with a couple of ACEVO members. It's great to see the results of these relationships: tangible evidence of how corporate partnerships can really help the third sector.

New Year's resolution - to update this blog more often. I hope to fill it with all the great insight and fresh thinking generated in our steering group and forum, and track the progress from these initial thoughts to a really positive and significant set of results. We've got one year, and we're going to make the most of it!