Previewing the 3rd Annual ICV Conference

On April 11 & 12, private sector leaders from IBM, PepsiCo, Pfizer—all pledge companies of A Billion + Change-- and dozens of other corporations, will join the U.S. State Department, USAID, and other public sector groups to talk about some of today’s most pressing issues – job creation, water, education, global health and the environment, among others. What are these groups doing to impact such a divergent set of issues? They are making an impact through volunteering. Addressing the intersection of corporate citizenship, talent and leadership development and more traditional international development programs, CDC Development Solutions’ upcoming Third Annual International Corporate Volunteerism Conference will look at why some of the largest corporations in America are sending employees beyond their office walls to pro bono skilled volunteer assignments in emerging markets such as Ghana, Vietnam, Brazil, and Cambodia – and how this is making a difference.

“One thing that I learned is that International Corporate Volunteerism can be structured to meet multiple needs of international companies: employee development, reputation and relationship development, and insight for future business growth,” says Laura Asiala, Dow Corning Corporation’s Director of Corporate Citizenship. Dow Corning recently sent volunteer teams to India, both of whom returned to their home bases with dozens of new product and service ideas-some of which are currently being explored for market.

Conference Highlights
The Third Annual International Corporate Volunteerism Conference will take a close look at the shared value of ICV programs and what’s on the horizon in the next few years as these efforts continue to integrate into global and domestic CSR and business strategies. 

Emily Kiely, who travelled to Ghana as part of PepsiCo’s first-ever PepsiCorps program last year, had this to say, “In last year’s conference, I found it fascinating to see all of the different ICV models out there. Every company designs a program that fits their specific business, industry, CSR objectives and employee desires. The conference gave us one place where we could see what we thought would work specifically for PepsiCo and pick out the components we wanted to use in our own program.” Having returned from her first volunteer trip last fall, Emily will share her experience taking the PepsiCo program from an idea to a reality.

Some of the topics will include:

Dow Corning: Linking a volunteer program to core business strategies

GlaxoSmithKline: How to set up a volunteer program to address a company’s global challenges and build partnerships with relevant NGOs

Pfizer, PepsiCo, & Novartis: Different ICV program models

Intel, IBM, Ernst & Young, & others: Conversations with past program volunteers

CDC Development Solutions:  Program design from start to finish

2012 ICV Benchmarking Survey from CDC Development Solutions: Statistics on growth, the increase in ICV investment levels and the factors that drive investments

“Last year’s ICV Benchmarking report was definitely one of the highlights because it gave real-time data to much of our work. The volunteer panel also made it evocative, as it incorporated the direct volunteer experience,” says Sabrina Quaraishi of Grameen Foundation’s Bankers without Borders, an international NGO that connects skilled finance professionals with local microfinance institutions.

To register for the Conference, go to Third Annual International Corporate Volunteer Conference. Or to simply learn more, join me for a Sneak Preview webinar of the conference on Tuesday, March 20 at 2 p.m. EST: http://bit.ly/x4XdNu