Strategic giving
Driving impact through partnership
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Kelem Butts is the VP of CSR Strategy at United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, and he believes that today’s most effective nonprofit-corporate relationships are not built on transactional exchanges, but instead long-term, strategic partnerships.
Kelem’s perspective on his role and this topic is unique, because he looks at it through the lens of his 22 years at AT&T, where he spent most of that managing sustainability and charitable operations and partnering with the very organization he works for today.
It’s likely that your sustainability program contains a community or philanthropic component, and if you’re not already, it’s time to look at it strategically. Your program should be both aligned with your company focus areas and goals, and be good for the community. In this episode, Kelem gives you permission to do something good, and be self-serving at the same time.
Here are some of the key takeaways from this episode:
- With a strategic non-profit partnership you're helping your community and you're helping your company at the same time
- Think of your charitable work as and investment, not charity
- Attitudes continue to evolve, the values of a company are much more important to Gen Z and Millennials
- A strong connection between your CSR work and the goals of the company will engage more employees and lead to more meaningful impact
- It’s important to keep track of the important data points you can use to understand your impact and the benefits to your company
- Trust the nonprofits to be the expert in the field, consider them your community impact consultants
- A strategic CSR program can help mitigate risk and strengthen reputation
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