IDEA
Partnering to Harness the Potential of International Corporate Volunteerism
Christopher Jurgens is the Global Partnerships Division Director in USAID’s Office of Innovation and Development Alliances.
All too often, service and volunteerism are viewed as well-intentioned efforts with limited impact. However, international corporate volunteerism (ICV) programs have significant untapped potential within the development space—potential to both contribute to U.S. development assistance, and to support diplomacy efforts in emerging markets. ICV programs can serve as valuable tools in the formation and implementation of complex development programs worldwide.
It is with this potential and value in mind that I am excited to participate in the 3rd Annual International Corporate Volunteerism Conference. This two-day conference (April 11-12) will involve participants from more than 150 companies – from small businesses to Fortune 500s – NGOs, and government agencies, and highlight best practices and lessons learned from ICV initiatives. Sample topics include how development impact is measured; what has been achieved to date; and the impact ICV programs have on the private sector. I look forward to is a discussing the Center of Excellence for International Corporate Volunteerism (CEICV), a partnership between USAID, IBM, and CDC Development Solutions.
The CEICV is a two-year pilot program that brings together private sector and development professionals. By participating, private sector participants gain access to best practices and infrastructure for developing and running corporate pro-bono consulting programs. USAID Mission beneficiaries gain access to teams of talented individuals and technical assistance. Partners hope that the CEICV will establish a self-sustaining international corporate program that will serve as a resource to:
- Enhance USAID’s development efforts by leveraging the skills and expertise of corporate volunteers in the implementation of USAID projects in critical Agency sectors;
- Increase the number of participating companies and active skilled business volunteers and the impact and effectiveness of their contributions; and
- Track the development impact of ICV programs and create a proof of concept focused on best practices for mobilizing corporate volunteers to increase development impact.
Our partner IBM is a particularly active company in the ICV space. To date, the company has dispatched more than 1,200 of its top employees to over 100 engagements in nearly 20 countries as part of its Corporate Service Corps. These highly skilled teams of IBM professionals implement projects to improve local economic conditions, support entrepreneurship, and improve transportation, education, health care, and disaster recovery.
Public Private Partnership Week: A Development Innovation Venture that Unleashes the Potential of Small Business
Dr. Maura O’Neill is Senior Counselor and Chief Innovation Officer and leads Innovation & Development Alliances at USAID
As part of USAID’s 50th Anniversary, the Agency is celebrating Public-Private Partnership Week October 17-21, 2011 to highlight the mutual benefit that development and business have in establishing public-private partnerships (PPP) and to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Global Development Alliance (GDA) program.
As an entrepreneur several times over, I am always struck by the constraints that hard-working businessmen and women face across the world. Whether you have a small enterprise in Indiana or in sub-Saharan Africa many of the problems are the same. Am I selling a product that people want? Can I find people that will be great reliable employees? Can I buy materials in sufficient qualities that allow me to mark it up and offer the product at a profitable and compelling price to my customers? On that last point, the entrepreneur in a developing country often faces many fewer options to finance their inventory than we have in the U.S. Imagine for a moment the challenge of a small-scale shopkeeper in Africa. To afford his inventory, he must make small and frequent—and ultimately more expensive—orders to his supplier. He can only afford certain non-perishable goods, and rarely in bulk. If he could get access to trade credit, allowing him to borrow from suppliers and pay back over time, then he could grow his inventory, expand his business, and eventually escape the trap of a great business opportunity that never scales. But most of the time he can’t, because of another dilemma:
Imagine now the challenge of the trade creditor. To extend credit to small shopkeepers, she needs to be able to get and monitor repayments. She needs to have a way to enforce or find a remedy if the entrepreneur becomes a deadbeat. However, the costs of doing so outweigh the revenue she would make from providing such small credit. So she often doesn’t. The result is a missed opportunity, multiplied many times over, for fledgling entrepreneurs and trade creditors to mutually profit and generate economic growth. And the family and community income remains stuck at very low levels.
