It seemed like a fitting end to 2011 and good foreshadowing for 2012.

In all of the 2011 wrap-ups and 2012 trend forecasting, two things popped up a lot:

1. Companies continue to embed the philosophy of creating shared value into their business practices.
2. We are seeing more CR legislation shift from idea into action – whether it’s to support the new types of “B Corps” cropping up, to regulate cause marketing claims, or to mandate transparency in supply chains.

By the end of 2011, seven states had passed benefit corporation legislation – legislation that gives the impacted companies the legal right to hold directors accountable for creating a positive impact on society, as well as turning a profit. Other states including Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Colorado, and Michigan are considering passing similar measures.

It will be interesting to see over the coming months how many more of these laws we see and what impact it starts to have in the marketplace. 2012 may really be the year policy-makers make their voices heard in supporting shared value.

Humanitarian relief requires a coordinated, global approach. Yet in an era in which companies seek to develop corporate responsibility initiatives that differentiate themselves from their competitors, you might be surprised to learn about a collection of logistics-focused companies coming together to meet community needs.

UPS*, A.P. Moller-Maersk, TNT Express and Agility are collaborating as members of the Logistics Emergency Teams (LETs), a cross-company partnership that supports humanitarian relief efforts for large-scale natural disasters. LETs are deployed within 48 hours to support humanitarian relief partners. They intervene over the crucial weeks following a natural disaster, providing logistics specialists, assets (e.g., warehouses, trucks, forklifts) and transport services.

At the urging of the World Economic Forum,  TNT,  Agility  and  UPS  overlooked  business competition  and  joined  together  to  support  the  humanitarian  sector  with  emergency  response  logistics. The LETs deploy at the direction of the World Food Programme (WFP) and provides support to the WFP-led UN Global Logistics Cluster. The companies have pooled logistics expertise, human resources and in- kind services to be made available to support the relief community when disaster strikes.

The LETs have a proven track record of success. They worked together to provide humanitarian assistance to millions of people suffering from drought in the Horn of Africa; by providing the Logistics Cluster with airlifts of supplies and equipment, the LETs enabled the humanitarian community to reach those in need more quickly and efficiently. The LETs also assisted WFP’s relief support to the Government of Japan following the April 2011 earthquake.

Around 100 trained LETs volunteers around the world are currently on standby.

Hats off to corporate leaders of the Logistics Emergency Teams for recognizing that sometimes joining forces with unlikely partners is more effective than going it alone.

Do you know about other examples of groundbreaking partnerships among competitor companies? As companies seek to align their corporate responsibility initiatives with their business expertise, will we see more innovative partnerships like this one?

*APCO client

Baron Hill is a senior vice president based in our Washington, D.C., office where is a member of the government relations practice. He is a former U.S. representative for Indiana’s 9th congressional district.

 Last week, the White House convened a group of American business leaders for its “Insourcing American Jobs” forum. I was honored to attend the forum with Hal Sirkin of the Boston Consulting Group who is one of our clients here at APCO. Hal’s study, “Made in the USA, Again,” was a big part of the forum. President Obama highlighted the study in his opening remarks and used it to jump start the forum’s discussion.  

The White House also promoted a new report, available online, called “Investing in America: Building an Economy That Lasts.” Contained in this report are several positive points that give me some optimism about the state of our economy. For example, the economy has now added private sector jobs for 22 straight months – a total of 3.2 million new jobs.

The White House points toward “insourcing” as one reason for this. That is to say, American companies are doing more and more to bring jobs back home. Job creation is the single biggest issue in most Americans’ minds today – and it is crucial that companies look at the issue not just in terms of bolstering their bottom line, but in how they improve the communities in which they operate.

The White House’s forum gives us a chance to highlight how companies are looking outside the four walls of their corporate headquarters and taking a larger view of the state of the marketplace. If companies are looking for an innovative way to give back to their communities, they’re may be no better way than “jobs, jobs, jobs.”

Two years ago yesterday, the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti made shockwaves well beyond the small Caribbean country. Hundreds of millions of dollars were poured into the country by foreign governments and traditional charitable organizations. But what was most unique was that a substantial portion of international donations—$43 million to be exact—came from text messaging. The relief effort signaled a new age in social giving.

On this two-year anniversary of the disaster, the “Text to Haiti” campaign has been recognized as a tremendous success, paving the way for integrating mobile devices and text messaging into nonprofit fundraising strategies.

A study released today by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project surveyed these mobile donors to learn who they are, why they donated and their history of mobile giving since the 2010 earthquake.

Below are a few key findings that struck me most:

• The ability to send small donations using mobile phones facilitates “impulse giving” in response to moving images or events. Eighty-nine percent of donors heard about the campaign from their television, and half made their donations immediately upon learning about the campaign.
• Charitable giving in the mobile age by these donors is a social networking activity, but more through in-person conversations than through online tools. Just under half of those surveyed encouraged relatives and friends to make texting donations. And overall, most of these referrals were successful, with seventy-six percent saying their friends and family did indeed make donations to the relief effort using their mobile devices.
• A majority of the Haiti text donors have contributed to more recent disaster recovery efforts using their phones. More than half have made text donations to other disaster relief efforts since the 2010 earthquake.

Visit here to view the whole report produced by Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

Aaron compared the recent innovations in corporate volunteer practices to Moneyball. If you’ve read the book or seen the movie, you know the story: Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane revolutionized MLB roster management by employing a new approach to analyzing a player’s value. The “data nerds” have created a system that is more efficient and less risky, leading to improved performance for a franchise on the field and the balance sheet.

I agree with Aaron — there are a lot of similarities. The “old school” line of thinking had volunteer managers solely focused on episodic “hands on” activities such as cleaning the park, charity walks and food drives. The data used to analyze value for these experiences is almost exclusively centered around “outputs” (e.g. hours of service, pounds of food, dollars raised — stats akin to batting average and RBIs). This information is useful, but does not allow a company to paint a complete picture of the true value of that service.

There was no one Billy Beane figure in corporate volunteerism, but rather a collective desire to be able to define ROI better. Over the last several years companies in every industry have been experimenting with metrics, dashboards and logic models to better define the bottom line value of volunteerism. These tools allow companies to assess the opportunity and the investment with respect to the IMPACT it will make—because that’s a better indicator of success. And impact can be defined in several contexts simultaneously — on employees/company culture, in the communities where we operate, on our stakeholders, on our reputation and in the operation of our core business. We’ve moved from batting average to “on base percentage”—because whether you hit or walk, what matters is getting on base.

Now, the norm is to think about “outcomes” from service — what change has been affected as a result of the intervention of our employees? And, volunteer managers have expanded their definition of service to include a full spectrum of engagement opportunities: pro bono expertise, skills-based service, email and online engagements, and long-term ongoing projects.

By using the right analysis tools and focusing on the right data points, companies are getting more ROI from volunteerism programs. It’s a system any sabermetrics geek could love!

Athletic conference realignments altering cherished rivalries within college sports. Alleged acts of pedophilia by coaching staff against children in their care. Compliance violations and a range of sometimes controversial penalties assessed against member schools. This is the context for which the NCAA and several of its marquee institutions enter into the previously hallowed football bowl season. Lack of preparation and poor decision-making have resulted in several senior administrators becoming a part of the anticipated December unemployment statistics instead of leading their schools or departments. This will indeed be a winter of unprecedented criminal investigations, litigation and adverse media coverage.

As daily stories regarding the aspects of these events have unfolded on our TV screens and social media, several friends and journalists have called to ask how or if any of this could have been possibly prevented. Of course, no one can fully prevent horrendous judgment committed by individuals within an institution if a person is intent on engaging in morally reprehensible or criminal acts. However, more than ever before, boards of directors of corporations and university trustees are asking their senior executives to ensure that their institutions have a fresh crisis plan and that all the requisite stakeholders in the enterprise are equipped to operationalize it when the inevitable mayhem visits their doorstep.

What does such preparation look like for a large, complex multi-stakeholder organization such as a university or corporation?

Here are a few steps to lay the groundwork for a more robust enterprise risk management and crisis plan:

1. Practice “anticipatory management” and build a plan. In other words, there are many maladies or material events one can defuse by having a dedicated issue identification system and an assigned senior manager with responsibility to be laser-focused on mitigating what could possibly go wrong. Are you comfortable that your retail doors or college bookstore have a practiced protocol if a robbery were to occur or a natural disaster threatened the lives of staff there?
2. Pre-identify an internal issue/crisis management team and provide them the authority to act.
3. Build relationships with the media and other third-party stakeholders – prior to a crisis.
4. Practice your crisis management protocol through scenario training. Involve your Board of Trustees, president’s office and other key corporate/university stakeholders in preparing for any number of likely scenarios at your institution.
5. Media train your key personnel – selection of a credible spokesperson and their ability to communicate under pressure is crucial.

Whether you are a corporation or a university, you need to know how to assess the full context of your respective situation – using both qualitative and quantitative tools – in order to determine the best use of your resources. We have a proprietary system we call the APCO Predictive Risk & Opportunity (PRO) Model that we have successfully applied in many situations.

While working in a senior capacity for the largest consumer athletic brand on the planet, my colleagues knew that the best work I often performed was managing those decisions and incidents internally before our employees, investors and other stakeholders even knew they were an issue. On major decisions such as new athlete signings, new market entry and certain product debuts, we applied an issue management lens that allowed us to better control the desired outcomes and take greater risk, if warranted. If a crisis did occur, we had a plan and knew what team was in charge.

Prominent universities are indeed strong brands that need protecting as the thousands of students (stakeholders) often link the values of their diplomas to the overall reputation of the institutions. Sponsors and faculty all-stars also pay attention to a university’s reputation as the competition is fierce for their expertise.

If companies and universities learn anything from the recent spate of organizational crises or meltdowns, it certainly should be to accelerate your crisis management plan development and the training of your teams. Taking these steps allows you to focus on the bigger picture and recovery – instead of the process. It is no time to try and develop a protocol when you could be fighting for your very existence.

He was last week’s featured guest blogger on PRWeek’s Insider blog. Here’s an excerpt from Friday’s post.

In my previous posts, I made the case that corporate branding is out of step with the reality of the market. Why, when given the ability of companies to adapt quickly to technological change, would corporate brands be out of step?

To some degree, I think companies have been forced to adapt their operations and product marketing to technology because it has hit them over the head like a sledgehammer. The market quickly makes winners and losers, but the corporate brand doesn’t cry out in the same way. It is harder to diagnose the harm a brand suffers from being left behind, making it less likely to get attention. 

There is, however, very tangible science available that documents the value of the corporate brand and its ability to predict things like sales, customer and employee loyalty, and even market capitalization.

Read the full article on PRWeekUS.com.

Robert Schooling is president for the Americas at APCO Worldwide. He is also chief evangelist for the firm’s Champion Brand.

Corporate brands need to step up. Now is the time to rethink your corporate brand in light of the new expectations and interactions it faces.

Once upon a time, we could categorize stakeholders by their occupations. Today, stakeholders can create themselves by their level of advocacy, and the tools to create that advocacy have become much more democratized and scalable. Individuals can become influencers quickly and with global reach. Their advocacy may be aimed at a particular product, but as often as not, they pierce the corporate veil and go straight to the corporate brand. Why do this? Because people are smart. They understand that products don’t make decisions, companies do; products don’t run afoul of labor standards, companies do; and products don’t have environmental problems, companies do.

Read the full article on PRWeekUS.com.

Robert Schooling is president for the Americas at APCO Worldwide. He is also chief evangelist for the firm’s Champion Brand.

He is this week’s featured guest blogger on PRWeek’s Insider blog. Here’s an excerpt from today’s post.

Let’s talk about brands for a minute. I think this may be an area where semantics have overtaken common sense. I’ve read heated online exchanges about the difference between brand and reputation, but the difference when discussing corporate brands seems only one of perspective. The brand is the promise, the reputation is the success in delivering on that promise.

When we talk about corporate brands, what are we really talking about? It is the promise those brands are making to a range of potential stakeholders about what they can expect from the company. With that in mind, I am always stunned when a company gives short shrift to its corporate brand under the delusion that “no one is buying the corporate brand – they’re buying the products.”

Read the full article on PRWeekUS.com.

Having worked in the HIV/AIDS field for more than 20 years, I find myself each December 1 – World AIDS Day – reflecting on how far we have come in tackling the global HIV/AIDS pandemic and contemplating what the future will bring.

This past year marked the 30th anniversary of the first reports from U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) of unusual cases of Kaposi’s Sarcoma and pneumocystis pneumonia in gay men, both later recognized as opportunistic infections associated with HIV infection and diagnostic of full-blown AIDS. Hence, 1981 is seen as the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in terms of public attention to a frightening and previously unknown infectious threat.

Over the next 15 years, much effort was focused on the scientific, clinical and epidemiological aspects of HIV infection and AIDS with significant investment by the U.S. government through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the CDC among other government agencies, along with the research-based pharmaceutical industry. But 1996, the 15-year mark of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, was a watershed year for science, the industry and people living with HIV/AIDS, at least in the United States, Europe and other health resource-rich regions. In that year, the notion of the “triple-combination cocktail” of antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV infection – taking viral load to undetectable levels for prolonged periods – came to life, and indeed brought life back to those ravaged by AIDS. 

So we come to 2011, another 15 years into the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Aren’t we ready for another watershed year? I say yes, and it’s about prevention of HIV/AIDS. This year has brought forth new evidence and the realization we have a very large toolbox to prevent HIV infection. As U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in her recent speech at the NIH, we have the ability to achieve an AIDS-free generation.

The toolbox for HIV prevention is overflowing with proven and durable interventions that can be combined to dramatically reduce new HIV infections – a strategy known as combination prevention. These tools, like “treatment as prevention,” prevention of mother-to-child transmission, male circumcision, condoms, counseling and improved testing for HIV are all means toward this end. If this approach to combination prevention can be scaled up with as much vigor as was done for the triple combination cocktail in 1996, we can indeed achieve a generation free of AIDS.

On World AIDS Day 2011 we have accomplished much, considering the obstacles to science, politics and funding that HIV and AIDS have posed over the last 30 years. Now, it’s time for our prevention strategies to be scaled up. If we can do this, I optimistically envision a World AIDS Day in 2016 or 2012 when we can mark a new, AIDS-free generation.