While spending a week on Necker Island with Sir Richard Branson last summer, we had the opportunity to discuss his “B Team” concept in depth. The B Team is a group of internationally renowned business and thought leaders like Paul Polman of Unilever, Dr. Mo Ibrahim of Celtel, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria and Ariana Huffington of the Huffington Post. The B Team seeks to accelerate the implementation of Plan B, an equal commitment to the planet and people, as well as profit. When I (Ivan) interviewed Sir Richard, he said, “We can’t leave every problem to government – nonprofits alone cannot solve the tasks at hand. We cannot continue to do ‘business as usual’.”
Plan A for business has traditionally been to focus only on making the largest profit possible. You know that adage, “He who dies with the most toys wins”. That is how we have personally seen most people in business approach their corporate and personal success. Now we are seeing more and more successful businesses not simply paying lip service to giving back in order to make the world a better place, but really doing it!
Conversations are taking place in the marketplace that reveal this shift is happening. Books like Conscious Capitalism by our friend, Dr. Raj Sisodia, and his co-author, Whole Foods founder John Mackey, and We First by our good friend, Simon Mainwaring, have become best sellers. It is encouraging to see that a new focus has reached critical mass and is rapidly moving toward the tipping point.
As I (Ivan) interviewed Sir Richard about the B Team and Plan B (see the video of this interview here), he inspired me to question what it would look like within BNI. Then I considered what it would look like in our communities if not only BNI implemented Plan B as a corporation but BNI chapter members adopted it within their own companies.
Think about it: What will change for the better when many small companies adopt local issues and bigger companies adopt national issues and global companies adopt international issues?
In this article, I want to share four ways BNI members can engage in their own Plan B focus because charitable activities are an important part of building a powerful personal network:
1. Create a nonprofit arm of your own company. While you may feel that it is too costly or requires a lot of administration to create your own nonprofit charitable organization, that’s simply not true! Most cities and states (and even countries) have community foundations in which you would be able to create a donor-advised fund for a much smaller amount than creating a stand-alone nonprofit.
When BNI started to really become successful, we chose to start the BNI Foundation with its focus on children and education within the California Community Foundation. The BNI Foundation awards mini grants of $1000 to teachers who can’t secure funding from their school districts or states for the resources they need. Our grant making is limited to countries in which we have BNI chapters, and teachers are invited to apply after being referred to us by a BNI member or BNI director.
2. Get to know the nonprofit organizations that are working hard to support life-changing and environment-sustaining causes. For the BNI Foundation, that means learning about national and regional organizations like the Boys and Girls Clubs, Junior Achievement, Elevate New York and the C5 Youth Program. We also are building relationships with many local charities as they are referred to us. Your chapters can get involved with this relationship-building process by inviting them to visit your meetings in order to learn more about them.
These organizations need resources such as computers and tablets, consultants and mentors, as well as host businesses so students can come in and learn about business – to find the inspiration to press through their challenges in order to graduate from high school or even to dare to dream that they may one day go to university. They also need community members to be involved on their boards and with their fund-raising efforts. They can use the services of local BNI members, too, such as printing, handyman services, tax planning and catering. There is a lot we can do to support them in addition to monetary donations!
In order to reach in and help out, you have to know what the needs are. Keith Ferrazzi, in his book Never Eat Alone, encourages us to use our lunch breaks as power meetings with others with whom we want to network. You can set aside one lunch per week (or more, as your time allows) to meet with the organizers of charities you want to get to know better. This is a great way to develop relationships with the people who are pouring into the causes that matter to you.
3. Bring your employees and clients along with you. Show them how they can help out. Consider holding a staff volunteer day at a school site that needs help. Many companies are starting to offer their staff paid time each month to devote to volunteerism. There are many ways your company’s staff can work together to address the many needs these schools have.
Trust us when we say that your clients will value your business greatly when they see that you are doing good work in the community and giving them the opportunity to join you in that!
Without our help, inner city and inner urban high schools will continue to experience an average drop-out rate of nearly 40%. This is certainly not good for business! We need a strong, well-educated working class in our country. As we have implemented our call to action and are getting to know the educational support organizations in the major cities of our nation, we are learning that students who are able to access groups like Elevate New York, Boys and Girls Clubs, C5LA and Motivating the Teen Spirit have a high-school graduation rates of between 95-100%!
The BNI Foundation is starting an initiative called Business VOICES (Business Values Our Inner City Education & Schools) to let entrepreneurs in the US know what needs are out there. You can start something similar as it relates to your own company’s cause, or join us. You’ll find us discussing this initiative on our Facebook page.
4. Host a Get-Acquainted Meeting for a nonprofit that has a positive impact in your community. You can be a gatekeeper for the organizations that need support. You might have space at your office to host a gathering. If not, consider underwriting a get-acquainted meeting at a local establishment. Some of these organizations have regularly scheduled get-acquainted meetings and would benefit greatly from your support in sponsoring one or several of these events.
Since BNI has a large national presence in the US, BNI HQ is hosting webinars on a regular basis that spotlight one or two local educational nonprofit organizations. These webinars do not cost us anything to coordinate and they give a larger platform to the organizations we are spotlighting. Our next Business VOICES spotlight webinar will focus on a school in Ferguson, MO, which will focus on its needs and how we can positively impact the students.
These are just some of the ways BNI can plug into Plan B and help make a difference. We believe business can change the world in thousands of positive ways!
To register for our upcoming Business VOICES October 3 webinar, click here.
Called the “father of modern networking” by CNN, Dr. Ivan Misner is a New York Times bestselling author. He is the Founder and Chairman of BNI (www.BNI.com), the world’s largest business networking organization. His book, Networking Like a Pro, can be viewed at www.IvanMisner.com. Dr. Misner is also the Sr. Partner for the Referral Institute (www.ReferralInstitute.com), an international referral training company.