Marrying Economic and Social Objectives in Your Local Government Area How to motivate and sustain effective business and community partnerships

Phil Preston, the Collaborative Advantage First Edition, September 2016 © Phil Preston 2016

Image courtesy of shutterstock.com

About the author 3 ................................................................................Introduction 4 .......................................................................................1. Setting the scene 5 ............................................................................2. A win-win lens for business and community engagement 7 ...........3. Business and social convergence 10 .................................................4. What does the journey look like? 12 ................................................5. The opportunity 15 ...........................................................................6. Examples of local government explorations 17 ...............................

6.1 Stakeholder driven strategies 17 ....................................................................................6.2. Catalytic events 17 ........................................................................................................6.3 Capacity building 18 ......................................................................................................6.4 Project strategy and solution 18 ....................................................................................6.5 Mapping tools 18 ...........................................................................................................6.6 Measurement and storytelling 19 ..................................................................................

7. What is your approach? 20...............................................................

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About the author Phil is a former investment manager who left corporate life in 2007 to help businesses make a positive impact in the communities they operate in.

He became a pioneer of the shared value movement, where business embraces ‘purpose’ as a strategic weapon in improving performance. It requires a mindset where profit and purpose go hand-in-hand rather than head-to-head.

The founders of the shared value concept, Michael Porter & Mark Kramer, invited Phil to Boston in 2013 to form the inaugural global practitioner network. He’s worked with a wide range of companies, non-profits and community organisations and provided assistance in regions such as Albury, Central Coast, Greater Dandenong, Geelong, Wagga Wagga, Western Sydney and Wollongong.

Phil is valued for his hands-on methods, practical approach and ability to facilitate ideas that create win-wins for all those involved.

You can find out more about Phil, his client list and testimonials on his website, philpreston.co

Phil Preston, Founder, the Collaborative Advantage

Shared Value Expert | Collaboration & Facilitation Services | Keynote Speaker on Business and Social Convergence

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Introduction Local economies only thrive in healthy social settings, which means that your business and social agendas are inextricably linked.

With pressure on budgets and service delivery becoming the norm in the public sector there is a good incentive to help businesses and community organisations form deeper and more effective partnerships.

‣ How do you get this message through to businesses and organisations in your area?

‣ How do you motivate them to shift into a higher gear?

‣ How to you equip them with the support, skills and tools they need?

‣ What process or framework should you work from?

‣ What are the practical steps that will get this process in motion?

At the internal level, how can your Economic Development and Community Development teams create a common language to work on this task together? How do you frame and track success?

This paper provides a new lens for analysing business and community dynamics, outlining the rationale for deeper partnerships, the different types of relationships they can form, what the journey looks like from the business perspective and a process for facilitating deeper levels of engagement between the two sectors.

It draws on the latest industry developments, best practice and innovation techniques, and provides six illustrative examples of how local governments have started their explorations to help you visualise what the first steps look like.

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1. Setting the scene As the saying goes, there are no healthy high streets without healthy backstreets - the underlying social and environmental health of a community will have a direct impact on economic prosperity.

Robert Putnam’s 1993 paper, ‘Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy’ put forward the notion that successful communities became rich because they were socially strong, and not the other way around. The strength of our social fabric is like invisible glue and hard to measure, however we know when it is missing because we see the signs such as rundown and shabby neighbourhoods. In The Art of Belonging, Hugh Mackay notes:

“… communities don't just happen. We have to create them and build them. That means participating in the life of the community - socially, commercially, culturally”

Consider the major retail strip in your town: some of the individual businesses might be doing well and outperforming their competitors, however they may not be able to withstand the advent of a broader recession or major local downturn. When an economic or social tide ebbs, it can carry all boats with it. This point was reinforced by Mike Hirst, Managing Director of the Bendigo & Adelaide Bank, at a panel session:

“It's very hard to run a successful business in a poor community”.

Australia as a whole hasn’t experienced recessionary conditions since the early 1990s. Whether we will be so fortunate from here is unknown, which is good reason to fortify your economic and social agenda. The goal is to create the foundations for greater resilience and prosperity in the future.

The City of Greater Dandenong commissioned research from the Centre for Local Economic Strategies to explore the links between the public, private and social sectors in the context of socially inclusive growth. Local governments role in bringing different organisations together and empowering them to act was cited as a critical success factor.

Think of a triangle with local government, business and community interests in each corner. The challenge is to develop a strategy and set of actions that unify each of the sides of the triangle. Local government has strong control over its own dealings with businesses and with its community agenda, however it has less control over business and community interactions, which is why an effective ‘facilitation’ or supporting role is required.

Every social problem is likely to be a constraint on business and economic growth in some form. For example:

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‣ Low levels of education and attainment may constrain growth by reducing the attractiveness of your area to a company looking for a new location

‣ Dysfunctional social and disability services will inhibit people and their carers to participate in the workforce

‣ Poor levels of health will affect employability, job readiness, absenteeism and workforce productivity

‣ Ignoring the needs of diverse local populations can lead to social or civil disruption

‣ Excessive unemployment reduces demand for local products and services

‣ A shabby main street may deter private investment and reduce the potential for local trade and tourism.

For any given social issue there is likely to be an adverse flow on effect to business conditions, whether large or small.

Businesses of all sizes have been generally supportive of community causes. In 2013, ABS data shows that philanthropic donations from Australian business were estimated at $850 million. These are after-the-fact distributions of profits, not to be confused with operational expenditures. Against an annual GDP figure of $1.6 trillion in 2015-16 of which 75% is attributable to private sector production , philanthropic donations represent 1

less than 0.1 per cent of private sector production.

These figures raise the following questions:

‣ Should we accept that this cosmetic level of support represents the true potential of the private sector?

‣ Do businesses understand and appreciate the link between social conditions and profitability?

‣ Can you shift their community agenda from philanthropy to more focused and effective forms of support?

‣ What is the potential of that shift in terms of mobilising additional resources?

‣ How do you motivate change and support the transformation?

This paper addresses these questions by drawing on the concept of creating shared value. It offers a framework and process that local government can use to influence businesses and motivate them to play a greater role. Such approaches are likely to be sustained and more effective than traditional forms of community investment.

GDP figures from ABS data. Sector contributions sourced from Productivity Commission, National Accounts and 1

Deloitte Access Economics reports.

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2. A win-win lens for business and community engagement One of the frustrations I experienced as an investment manager many years ago was the short-term nature of the industry. Because social and environmental factors tended to play out over longer time periods they went under-analysed, meaning that risks and opportunities were ignored until they grew in size and came home to roost.

Before leaving the industry in 2007, I co-led an internal project to integrate social and environmental research into our investment process. Crafting the right language was important in motivating and getting internal buy-in; we framed the benefits as “enhancing your process” and “having more information for decision-making”, which struck a chord. At the same time, we supported our analysts with additional research sources.

Although the local government context is different, crafting the right language and providing support services when driving change is the common thread.

Two years after leaving the industry I had a major light bulb moment. A paper entitled Strategy & Society by Harvard Professor, Michael Porter, and Mark Kramer examined the link between business strategy and societal health. It gave an example of the Marriott Hotel Group, where an investment in training longer-term unemployed candidates for entry level roles paid off because:

‣ With the right training program they were just as, if not more, capable than standard applicants; and

‣ They tended to stay with the company for longer, thus reducing the net cost of recruitment and retention.

This and other examples demonstrated the link between positive social contributions and improved business performance. Even though the business motive for creating shared value is primarily financial, this in part explains why it’s attractive and complementary to giving, sponsoring and volunteering:

1. The business is motivated to maintain and sustain its involvement because it’s linked to value creation

2. It’s embedded in normal operations and therefore greater resources are mobilised, whereas community donations usually come from limited ‘budgets’ or allocations

3. It is levering what the business is really good at or has in abundance, leading to more effective contributions and social impact.

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This shared value dynamic can be seen in examples that I’ve documented. In Western Sydney , a group of real estate agents in the Macarthur area joined a project to help reduce 2

tenancy eviction rates. Financial, health, employment or other problems can easily lead tenants down the path to eviction and entry into the homeless system. Under this project arrangement, participating real estate agents have a central contact point, Mission Australia, to refer at-risk situations and over a two-year period they averted 57 evictions from 102 referrals.

The savings to government and the social system are significant. Not only that, but the real estate agents save the hard costs associated with an eviction process of approximately $1,000, they avoid the soft costs of management time and stress and their landlords are more than $10,000 better off due to the avoidance of loss of rent, property remediation and re-letting costs.

To put it in perspective, this type of business strategy is more effective for the community and government than, say, its staff doing a fun run together and raising $1,000 for charity. That is not to say the fun run is a bad idea, it’s illustrating how social impact can be far, far greater when linked to core business needs. Making a conscious and informed choice about community support is better than a piecemeal or ad hoc approach, especially when win-win outcomes can be found.

“Leaders in both business and civil society have focused too much on the friction between them and not enough on the points of intersection” – Porter & Kramer

In another example, construction labour force provider, Productivity Force, set up an 8-week training program to better skill unemployed youths for work in their industry. They were motivated by high turnover rates: 50% of trainees last less than two years. As a result, the cost base of the business is high and making an investment in procuring better quality trainees can lower that cost. Their program uses behavioural economics principles to motivate younger people to meet performance standards, it prepares them physically and a life skills component helps them deal with the realities of the workplace and holding down a job. The results to date have been positive.

Insurance company, Suncorp, has partnered with Good Shepherd Microfinance and its national provider network to release Insurance Essentials by AAI, a range of home and car insurance products suited to low-income earners. In other words, it has found a commercial opportunity in addressing unmet needs in the community. Low-income earners typically don’t need the bells and whistles that come with standard insurance policies and, by working with social sector partners, they have devised an appropriate, pared back and affordable product range.

In the words of Porter and Kramer: companies have focused on creating economic value in fairly unimaginative ways through short-term initiatives such as restructuring, personnel

Gerencer & Preston, Reducing Homelessness Through Commercial Incentive for Real Estate Agents, Shared Value 2

Initiative Case Study (2015)

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reductions, relocation to lower cost regions and levering balance sheets. In the process, addressing societal issues has been largely delegated to government and non-profit organisations.

Several shopping centre managers have shown leadership with a hands-on approach in dealing with problem youths at particular locations. They could have delegated the problem to the police, councils, support services and government agencies, however they’ve chosen to work with stakeholders and invest in positive social outcomes because they know it will drive improved retail performance at their shopping centres in the medium to long-term.

These examples should give cause for optimism that marrying the business and social agenda can be very effective when it is backed by a business case. How many examples currently exist in your area? How could you encourage more?

Finding these types of win-wins isn’t just a nice-thing-to-do for business, it is a consequence of the broader societal ‘convergence’ trend.

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3. Business and social convergence The business environment is increasingly competitive and companies wedded to management techniques that they’ve used for the past 10 or 20 years are struggling. Innovation research by Doblin shows that very little commercial value is derived from 3

investments in product iterations; most value is created through strategic partnerships that help transform the business model or by dramatically improving the customer experience. Therefore it follows that connecting with community interests to help solve social problems in a commercially relevant way is a crucial part of the modern management task.

The market for grants, program funding and charity fundraising for social sector organisations has also become very competitive, driving consolidation and the proliferation of new models, such as social enterprise. Funding a social mission from recurring commercial revenues is very attractive compared to relying on handouts. The social sector is becoming more business-like at the same time that businesses are seeking to invest in social outcomes.

This is the business and social convergence trend, as per Diagram 1, and local government is well placed to facilitate solutions - drawing on its unique vantage point and knowledge of the business and social landscape, providing these two objectives can be reconciled internally.

Diagram 1: The convergence continuum

Source: Author’s construct

To spark new collaborations and partnerships, you firstly need to shift peoples’ ideas about what’s possible. Having brokered many cross-sector conversations to date, it has become apparent that there are 7 essential mindset requirements:

EntityType TraditionalNon-profit

SocialEnterprise

SocialBusiness B-Corp SharedValueBusiness

TraditionalBusiness

Businessmodel Thesocialmissionis

fundedmostlybygrants,

donationsorgovernmentcontracts

Thesocialmissionis

fundedmainlyfrom

commercialrevenues

Thesocialmissionis

fundedentirelyfrom

commercialrevenues

Afor-profitmodelwith

socialsupporthard-wiredintothebusiness

Supportingrelevantsocietal

challengesislinkedtocore

businessstrategy

Profitcomesfirst-socialsupportisabout

preservinglicence-to-operate

Sourced from www.doblin.com 3

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1. Interdependence – awareness that business performance depends heavily on the socio-economic conditions that surround it

2. Socially innovative – an ability to join the dots and link social progress with business benefits

3. Optimisation – lever what the business is good at or has in abundance and find the best partners to work with to maximise social impact

4. Proactivity – opportunities won’t appear magically; businesses and community organisations need to go out there and find them

5. Investment – an investment using a business case is required to receive an enduring return

6. Patience – the capacity to think and act beyond short-term reporting cycles

7. Analytics – measure and collect performance data to better inform decisions about the allocation of internal resources

How would the major businesses and community organisations in your area rate against this criteria?

I’ve also found that, whilst most people intuitively like the shared value concept, your challenge is to identify who is really engaged and keen to act so that your own resources are invested wisely.

For business, it’s about shifting from a profit first and social support second mentality to one where the latter drives the former. To do this, they need perspectives and expertise that resides in the social sector. For community organisations, encourage them to keep an open mind about the types of strategic relationships that can be created with commercial operators.

Promoting shared value concepts will not solve all of your social problems. Communities still need interventions from government, agencies, NGOs and charities because there are many problems that don’t intersect with business opportunities, however you can play a role in levering what businesses are really good at in order to make a bigger impact in areas of mutual interest. This includes cross-pollinating ideas, bringing in new perspectives and helping people and organisations visualise ‘what could be’.

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4. What does the journey look like? If a business hasn’t previously engaged in a meaningful way with its community then it’s unlikely to start creating shared value overnight. There are many different forms of engagement for businesses to choose from: those with limited value through to those that have significant value for both sides.

To illustrate how the journey may look, consider Iveco, a truck and commercial van manufacturer based in Victoria and part of CNH Industrial (Fiat Group). It first became engaged when it donated a van to a foundation that supports truck drivers’ health and wellbeing. Since then it has donated more vans to be fitted out for use in mobile health check services and the relationship has grown to include partnering in the development of an app that provides succinct updates and information to drivers. It started out as philanthropy and has grown into a more substantial relationship over time.

A more strategic form of engagement is evident in Patterson Cheney, a Toyota dealership with operations in Dandenong and Berwick (Victoria). Their car servicing operation employs 40 people in the 16-30 year age bracket. When a customer mentioned their son was capable and keen to work but didn’t fit the standard employment profile the company engaged a local job services provider to find out if there were more potential employees in this situation. They set up a 7-week work experience program and 15 people with various abilities and backgrounds went through it, with five going on to gain full time employment.

Apart from the positive social outcome, the business has found that these employees are just as, if not more, productive than those they get through a standard employment process, they contribute to a strong work culture and are likely to stay with the company for longer. They have made a clear and positive link between business performance and community benefit.

Table 1 outlines the suite of options available to businesses when considering community partnerships. They may prefer to have several activities across the categories of philanthropy, community and impact investments and creating shared value.

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Table 1: Business motivations and options for investing in social and community issues

Source: Author’s knowledge and various papers published by Social Ventures Australia and the Harvard Business Review

© Phil Preston 2016

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Category Form of Support Example

Philanthropic:Giftingoffinancialorotherresources|Drivenbysocialconscienceordesiretobeagoodcorporatecitizen

Employeegiving:Enablingemployeegivingthroughpayrolldonationsystemsandprocessing

WorkplacegivingprogramsthatsupportcharitiessuchastheHeartResearchInsitute

Matchedgiving:Thebusinessofferstomatchemployeedonationsdollarfordollar

Employeragreeingtomatchemployee’sdonationtotheStarlightFoundation

Foundationgrants:Directingemployeeandbusinessdonationsintoafoundationforagrantsteamtoallocate

Acompanyfoundationfundsthebuildandfit-outofaMen’sShed

Sponsorshipsandsupports:Providingsmallerscaledonations,goods,servicesorcapacitybuilding

Sponsoringanetballclub,donatingsurplusfoodtocharitiesorofferingplacesintrainingcourses

Volunteering:Providingemployeeswithskilledandunskilledvolunteeringopportunities

Employeeshelpingwithserviceinacommunitykitchenorlawyersprovidingpro-bonoservices

CommunityandImpactInvestments:Investmentsinthecommunitythatarefocusedonspecificsocialimpacts,includingformsofcorporatesocialresponsibility(CSR)|Drivenprimarilybybrandandreputationenhancementsandriskmanagement

Developmentalvolunteering:Volunteeringopportunitiesforstaffwheretheactivityislinkedtolearninganddevelopmentneeds

Emergingleadersparticipatinginmentoringprogramstohelpbuildtheirknowledgeandskillsforfuturemanagementroles

Criticalinvestments:Essentialsponsorshipsorotherformsofsupportthatthecommunityexpectsthebusinesstoprovide

Financialsupportforhealtheducationprogramsinremotecommunitiesthatacompanyoperatesin

Catalyticinvestments:Contributionsintheformofgiving,leadership,knowledge,advocacyorcoordination,focusingonaspecificissueandinvolvingawiderangeofpartners

AmericanExpress,viaitsfoundation,workswithseveralpartnerstoprovidetourismtrainingforyoungpeople

Brandandreputationenhancers:Projectsorprogramswherepartnersarestrategicallychosentohelpassuageconcernsorbuildstandingwithcustomersorkeypartnerstothebusiness

VirginAustraliapartnerswithJetPetsandPetRescuetoprovidefreeflightsfortransportingrescuedpets.Aretailbrandsigninguptosustainablesourcingorethicalaccreditationstandards

CreatingSharedValue:Thebusinessderivesabenefitbypositivelycontributingtosocialoutcomes;includeselementsofstrategicCSR|Drivenbyadesiretocreatevalueatscaleonboththeeconomicandsocialfronts

Socialinvestmentslinkedtobusinessproductivity:Investinginsocialoutcomestodriveefficiencyandlowerthecostofdoingbusiness

RealestateagentsinWesternSydneyhelpingtoreducetenancyevictionratesandloweringtheirownoperatingcostsintheprocess

Socialinvestmentslinkedtoproductqualityorrevenuegrowth:Investinginsocialoutcomestodriveeffectiveness,suchasimprovedproductquality,performance,salesgrowthornewproductandmarketdevelopment

NestlesupportingfarmersinWahgunyahtodevelopoatsasaviablecrop,providingseedresearch,agronomyadvisersandaccommodativecontractualterms.Businessbenefitsincludelocalsourcing,higheryieldsandbetteroatquality.

Businessmodeltransformation:Creatingnewmodelsorprofitableformsofbusinesstoaddressspecificsocialorenvironmentalneedsandchallenges

Suncorp’sInsuranceEssentialsbyAAIprovidesaffordableandrelevantinsuranceoptionsforlowincomeearners

In some cases businesses will work on their own projects or programs with selected partners and, in others, they will work collaboratively with competitors or organisations across, say, a region, industry or economy to achieve their aims. The important thing is that businesses are aware of:

‣ The different types of support they can provide

‣ The business drivers behind each one

‣ How they currently provide support and to whom

‣ How they would like that profile to look in the future; and

‣ The benefits that flow from having a well thought through plan.

I’ve observed that community organisations, non-profits, NGOs and agencies are adept at partnering and collaborating with government and other social sector organisations. However they can be challenged when it comes to purely commercial partners and having the confidence to plan, make approaches and explore new ideas. The options listed in Table 1 may help community organisations better understand where opportunities reside and engage businesses in more effective conversations.

The culture across organisations and sectors varies dramatically. Different sectors tend to talk in quite different ‘languages’ and it can take an investment in time, skill building and energy to create a common dialogue that everyone understands. Likewise, business owners and managers are seldom good at understanding the community perspective and, despite good intentions, will often lack awareness and sensitivity around social problems.

To illustrate the language issue, the real estate project mentioned earlier struggled to gain traction. The messaging to real estate agents started out as:

“Develop mutually beneficial relationships between Real Estate agents and services that work with the homeless and disadvantaged.”

A project team member who had experience in the property industry helped to ‘translate’ it into a more effective form:

“We work with local real estate agents to reduce rent loss, introduce and sustain tenancies.”

To motivate and induce businesses to take the journey it requires the right mindset, messaging and the introduction of new skills.

Having made the case for bringing economic and social objectives closer together, how do you create a supporting environment for new partnerships to form and flourish?

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5. The opportunity Local government would be wise to play its part in supporting businesses and community organisations to widen their horizons and further their journey regardless of where they sit today. Taking a whole-of-local-economy view, the process can be broken down into three phases: Prepare, Design and Implement, outlined in Table 2.

Table 2: The process for marrying economic and social objectives

© Phil Preston 2016

* Available through the Author’s advisory services

The best place to start is internal dialogue to outline the social and economic context, identify the key drivers of change and clarify the nature of the opportunity.

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Phase Steps Outline

1.Prepare 1.1Contextanddrivers Understandinglocalconditionsandcontext;explorethemaindriversforEconomicDevelopment,CommunityDevelopmentandLocalGovernmentasawholetomarryeconomicandsocialobjectives

1.2Assessthelandscape Findoutthecurrentstateofbusinessandcommunityengagementmakinguseofastakeholdermap;theassessmentprocessmayincludetappingintolocalknowledge,networkintelligence,publications,eventsandinterviews

1.3Formaguidingcoalition Bringtogetherthemostinterested,influentialandengagedstakeholders(includingfromwithinlocalgovernment)and,together,createavisionofsuccess

2.Design 2.1Enablingactivities Reviewthe12enablingactivities*andadaptthemtoyourlocalcontextandconditions.Startsketchingoutwhatthoseactivitiesmaylooklike

2.2Definesuccess Convertthevisionforsuccessintoasetofkeyobservableindicators,whichmaybeamixofquantitativeandqualitativemeasures

2.3Strategyandactions Definethestrategyandactionsthatflowfromitwithatimelineforcompletionandmilestonesalongtheway

3.Implement 3.1Implementation Implementthestrategythroughthearticulatedactionswithsupervisionfromtheguidingcoalition

3.2Communications Establishregular,transparentandeasytounderstandcommunicationswithinternalandexternalstakeholders

3.3Reviewandrefine Reviewactualachievementsagainstplan,withtheguidingcoalitionfocusingonchallenges,successesandrefinements

It makes sense to get the perspectives of external stakeholders in your area through individual meetings, group sessions or gathering views from events. An initial consultation process with a diverse and representative group will help in stakeholder mapping, identifying key assets and resources, uncovering local examples, existing practices, common strategic issues and providing pointers as to where the opportunities lie.

In developing local and regional strategies and responses, I’ve found there are 12 key ‘enabling’ activities that can be adapted to your specific circumstances. They include changing the conversation to reflect both sides of the win-win, identifying and documenting local examples and promoting key concepts, methods and tools. It’s also vital to factor internal stakeholder needs into your plan.

The future payoff for a small amount of upfront investment can be substantial, with an end goal of motivating and sustaining effective business and community partnerships.

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6. Examples of local government explorations Here’s an outline of six approaches that I’ve been involved in to help you visualise what the near term actions and benefits can look like. In most cases they started out as briefing sessions or planning discussions.

6.1 Stakeholder driven strategies In a local government area, an all-encompassing stakeholder group decided that youth unemployment and participation would be their focus and were aligning their efforts around that issue. They were seeking guidance in encouraging businesses to move beyond simple forms of giving and towards greater win-win outcomes.

Following an executive briefing session with the government sponsor, a day of activities was planned, designed and delivered, including:

‣ A mayor’s business breakfast to introduce key concepts in a locally-friendly way

‣ A follow-on workshop, helping businesses to start scoping out opportunities; and

‣ A forum for government and social sector organisations to gain familiarisation with key concepts and project aims.

As a result, the local stakeholders have started considering the 12 enabling activities and how various stakeholder groups need to be engaged.

6.2. Catalytic events The social investment team within a local government entity was on the path to bringing community non-profits together with local businesses and wanted to convert talk into action. Two streams of separate events were set up to introduce the concepts in the right language for each audience, with the journey culminating in an event that brought both sectors together – aligning participants around the social issues they were mutually interested in, seeding ideas and forging relationships that didn’t previously exist. The social investment team followed up to ensure that fledgling collaborations were nurtured with the right types of support.

In another early-stage example, key players in a regional area sought to find out what level of interest in more collaborative approaches existed in the local community. A breakfast

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event that was expected to attract 10-20 people saw a crowd of more than 60 turn up, providing an opportunity to present on key concepts and provoke discussion amongst attendees. As a result the event sponsors are confident that further development and support is a worthwhile investment.

6.3 Capacity building In a slightly different application of the concepts, a local government set up a Launchpad program for budding social enterprises that included six half-day educational working sessions. Because social enterprises are bound by a social mission but rely on commercial revenue streams for ongoing viability, adopting the right mindset and forming the right partnerships can make or break their business model. One of the half-day sessions was devoted to the topic of forming business partnerships and it included a 7-point checklist for different types of win-win approaches they can explore.

6.4 Project strategy and solution The Community Development team in a local government knew that two small community organisations were about to lose their primary sources of grant funding that they had relied upon for many years. With no alternative public funding sources available, a small-scale strategy and consultation project was launched.

The strategy process included:

‣ Familiarisation with the operations and strengths of the two organisations in question

‣ Working with the Business Development team to identify larger businesses in the area that ‘get’ the link between social conditions and the economic environment

‣ Meeting with each of those businesses and identifying areas of mutual interest

‣ Tightly coaching and facilitating a meeting between three businesses, the two organisations and Community Development representatives

‣ Helping one of the businesses develop a multi-faceted support plan, consisting of short-term fundraising for survival and a concurrent challenge to find and develop a sustainable business model.

6.5 Mapping tools A barrier for making progress on business and community collaborations is the lack of how-to tools – people may intuitively understand the merits of the concept but struggle to take the first steps forward. A Local Government Association conference provided an

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opportunity to introduce councillors and executives to a one-page planning tool that they could use to map out cross-sector projects. To ensure maximum value was gained, an existing example in their area was mapped using the tool to act as a reference point for live discussions and increased learning.

These same tools and the process that go with them have separately been adopted and used by a range of businesses, charities, government agencies and related organisations.

6.6 Measurement and storytelling As part of a broader consultation and strategy piece to bring business and community interests together, the Economic Development team in a local government established a baseline measure of engagement points using Social Network Analysis . Although it is a 4

fairly crude measure, it helps in tracking changes in the number and composition of engagement points over time. The project also included extensive consultation with local stakeholders, working sessions and the documentation of six local examples:

1. A car servicing centre that provides opportunities for people with varying abilities whilst deriving employee productivity benefits (outlined in Section 4)

2. Shopping centre managers collaborating with police and the judicial system to help retailers deal with emerging crime trends

3. A truck and van manufacturer’s journey from philanthropic giver to more sophisticated impact investments (outlined in Section 4)

4. Linking employee diversity with new business growth at the branch of a major bank

5. A social enterprise distributing food to charities and improving the job readiness of workers to go on and gain regular employment in the area

6. An energy distribution company helping culturally and linguistically diverse residents reduce their energy bills through a partnership with a community organisation, helping them fulfil community obligations in the process.

As the above approaches illustrate, the characteristics of your area will dictate exactly how to deliver the ‘sparks’ that are required for more effective partnership formation.

A process of investigating relationships and social structures though the use of network and graph theories4

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7. What is your approach? There’s growing interest in the linkages between economic and social development in local government because of mounting budgetary and service delivery pressures. With this serving as the backdrop, there has never been a better time to grasp the opportunity: to help motivate and sustain deeper and more effective business and community partnerships. The glass is half full, not half empty!

The best starting point is to gather and explore internal and external perspectives.

I trust this paper has helped frame the issues for you and will help in constructing your own blueprint for moving forward. If you’d like support in starting your own explorations you can make contact via the details below.

Phil Preston, Founder, the Collaborative Advantage

Shared Value Expert | Collaboration & Facilitation Services | Keynote Speaker on Business and Social Convergence

m | +61 408 259 633

e | enquiries@philpreston.co

w | philpreston.co

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