Reimagining CSR

Warning: Shameless, but well deserved plug ahead.

Most people don’t know this, but my younger sister Jessica Stannard-Friel gave me my first big break in philanthropy. Before I started Tactical Philanthropy, I wrote an essay called The Evolution of the Tactical Philanthropist for the book Mapping The New World of American Philanthropy. The book was edited by my sister’s bosses Susan Raymond and Mary Beth Martin at the philanthropy advising firm Changing Our World. Jessica worked there after finishing her undergraduate degree at Harvard and then returned to Harvard to enter the MBA program in 2007. She’s always been the over-achiever in our family!

Now she has launched a new blog called Reimagining CSR. From her first post:

This blog will explore innovations and trends in corporate social responsibility, with an emphasis on initiatives that serve both a social impact motive and a profit motive. For instance, I’m very interested in the overlapping worlds of creative capitalism, business at the base of the pyramid, cause marketing, for-profit social enterprise, and so on.

…I hope that this blog will become a dialogue. In my posts, I plan to draw on sources including conversations with practitioners, books, articles, and conferences, but I think your comments and feedback could be the richest source of learning for me. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts on these issues or your ideas for this blog by commenting or emailing me.

Jessica’s blog is part of her course work at Harvard and she’s using it to explore CSR and learn as much as she shares. But she’s not simply a student, she really knows her stuff. From her bio:

Jessica Stannard-Friel is a second-year MBA student at Harvard Business School and Co-President of the school’s Social Enterprise Club. Prior to graduate school, Jessica worked as a corporate philanthropy consultant at Changing Our World, where she advised companies on strategic community engagement. While at Changing Our World, she also served as Corporate Philanthropy Editor for onPhilanthropy.com and co-founded the blog Future Leaders in Philanthropy. Last summer, Jessica interned at a corporate foundation, where she worked on the company’s international grantmaking strategy. She serves on the National Advisory Board of Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy.

So go check out her blog. She’s got a lot to say and she’d love to hear your thoughts.