How can finance and fundraising departments better work with each other? Why does it matter? Often, these disparate personalities find that working together feels chaotic, but it doesn’t need to be that way. In today’s episode, you’ll hear some ideas about how finance and development can build connections and better work together to support the mission.

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

• Why collaboration between finance and development is important
• Key differences that pop up between these two groups
• The different types of jargon that the different departments use
• Brainstorming with no fear
• Starting a conversation with “I want to know more…”
• A few things that a typical person in a finance department is focused on
• The role of technology
• First steps toward making connections

Resources:

Financial Management Toolkit – Blackbaud Institute

Blackbaud University Curriculum For Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT

Quotes: 

“The idea of everybody working together as a team in order to support the mission is immense in a nonprofit.”

“Nobody that is in finance in a nonprofit organization wants to see us go over budget.”

“I would think that the first thing you want to do is open the line of communication.”

Today, improving ESG (environmental, social, and governance) performance is no longer optional. People want to work for companies that are helping to change the world, consumers are making purchasing decisions based on how brands are solving social problems and addressing climate change and investors consider companies that are ESG laggards to be high-risk. Despite the imperative for corporations to be making social change a priority, many businesses continue the practice of "CSR lite," an approach that prioritizes communications and optics over meaningful and measurable change. 

Join Paul Klein for a conversation about why it's more important than ever for corporations to shift from a checkbox approach to corporate social responsibility to one that contributes to solving social problems. They will discuss what social change leadership looks like today and how businesses can help solve social problems and benefit from doing so.

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

• Impakt’s role and background
• Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) and how a company balances these elements
• Why ESG can be hard to measure, especially the S
• Quantitative and qualitative data
• The practice of CSR lite
• What it takes to move a company that isn’t there yet
• Which organizations are getting it right
• Companies that you don’t hear as much about
• Keeping the small and mid-sized businesses in mind
• Amazing examples of how companies mobilized their resources
• How people can learn more

Resources:

Paul Klein

Impakt

Impakt Foundation

[book] Change for Good by Paul Klein (ECW press) - coming spring 2022

Quotes: 

“I think that the social dimension of business is the next frontier of what it means to be a business in society today.”

"There's a leadership vacuum at a social change level."

“So many companies don't take [being socially responsible] beyond the bare minimum and that's what CSR lite is. It's the optics, rather than the substance."

“To me, the essence of innovation is thinking about the fastest way to make the biggest difference at the lowest cost.”