Responsible Business & Employee Engagement

Clinton Global Initiative's New Theme, "Designing For Impact," Emphasizes Action

Aug 22, 2012 9:10 PM ET
Campaign: Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting 2012

Alice Korngold's blog

For the first time in its 8-year history, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) has assigned a theme to its Annual Meeting--"Design for Impact"--to remind participants that the goal of the organization is action, not simply ideas.

"When the history of CGI is written, it won’t be about the meetings, it will be about the impact of the commitments,” says Ed Hughes, CGI deputy director and program director, referring to its member's Commitments to Action. "What we need to continually stress is that the meetings over the course of the year are the means to a greater end of motivating action and achieving impact.”

President Clinton has always described CGI as being in the “how” business: turning ideas into action. Having participated in CGI since 2008, I have seen the power of the partnerships between companies, NGOs, philanthropists, and governments in creating and implementing solutions and the astonishing results. I’ve seen small NGOs with new approaches rise almost overnight by leveraging relationships developed at CGI (such as Build Change and Refugees United), and already effective NGOs advance much further (such as Landesa, previously "RDI"). According to CGI, Commitments to Action are already improving the lives of nearly 400 million people in more than 180 countries.

See continuation on Fast Company here...

 

About Korngold Consulting LLC. Founded by Alice Korngold in 2005, the firm’s mission is to develop corporate and NGO/nonprofit leaders and boards for a better world. Korngold Consulting provides strategy consulting services to global corporations on CSR and leadership development, including training and placing hundreds of corporate executives on NGO/nonprofit boards; and board governance consulting services to global, national, and regional nonprofits, including universities and healthcare institutions. Korngold is the author of “Leveraging Good Will: Strengthening Nonprofits by Engaging Businesses” (Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint, 2005) and blogs for Fast Company.