What can businesses learn from charities?

I believe this attitude is limiting what both businesses and charities gain from working together, and I set out on my 2017 Churchill Fellowship to explore how to challenge it. I embarked on my travels in search of proof that the flow of insight in business-charity partnerships is not one way, and that there is much that businesses can and do learn from non-profits.

Over six weeks, my research took me up both coasts of the USA; to Washington DC, New York, Boston, San Francisco and Seattle, and on to Bogotá, Colombia. Visiting and interviewing over 50 organisations, I gathered examples of all kinds of learning flowing from non-profits into businesses, feeding into all areas of their work.

In my report, I present some of these examples in a model for business learning from non-profits. This shows how expertise from the third sector can help businesses to better understand issues that touch all areas of their operations – from making supply chains more environmentally friendly, to providing great service for vulnerable customers.

As well as what businesses can learn from non-profits, I explored how this learning can take place. For example, senior management at Fidelity Investments have seen their employees developing creativity and problem-solving skills through working on pro bono projects.

I also heard from corporate responsibility professionals striving to work more collaboratively with non-profits but experiencing a real sense of frustration that their businesses have come to be seen by many purely as a potential source of funding.

Shifting the dynamic of business-charity partnerships can result in better outcomes for both: for charities, influencing how business is done can take them a step closer to achieving their social mission, whilst for businesses, learning from charities can help to improve performance and efficiency, at the same time developing a stronger ‘social contract’ and securing their long-term future.

Responsibility for this lies on both sides, and I am now focusing on sharing and discussing my findings with business and charity audiences, circulating my report amongst relevant networks and looking for opportunities to write and speak about it.