10 WAYS TO BE SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE Ideas for 2011 Planning
Social Responsibility covers a very broad range of potential action in our businesses and personally. At ZOË, social responsibility is at the core of our business, we enable people to have impact in one small, but powerful, area - leveraging existing promotional & gift budgets for sustainable change. While we are only 3 years old, we've decided it's high time we put a plan together that articulates measurable targets for some of these other areas. At some point this fall, your company will likely start planning for 2011 so we thought we'd share our top 10 list for reference. If your company does not already have a full social responsibility program, you might choose one of these topics each month to explore. You never know what ideas the team might generate and what might be accomplished in 2011! We'll be publishing all of our goals in early 2011 on the website so that you can follow along with us on our progress and... maybe even send in your ideas and suggestions.
ORGANIZATIONAL
1. Set Goals: People, Operations, and Community
2. Report Progress - Be Accountable
3. Designate and Empower a Senior Leader for CSR Initiatives
PEOPLE
4. Ensure human resource policies are inclusive and foster a positive work environment - intentionally employ persons with disabilities.
OPERATIONS
5. Employee Incentives - Tie a portion of employee incentives to achieving socially responsible targets
6. Ensure every supplier to your organization - large or small - meets established standards
7. Environmental Impact - actively employ initiatives to reduce paper and other forms of waste produced by your business, use technology for meetings when possible, reduce emissions.
COMMUNITY
8. Promote an active employee volunteer program - set community impact targets
9. Percentage of Profits - Designate a percentage of profits to areas of need
10. Buy One Give One - make a practice of donating your products and/or services to a community in need, for example for every pair of shoes purchased, one is donated.
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New Conference Items from our Indian Partners
HAND ROLLED PENS MADE FROM RECYCLED PAPER  | |
Honestly, this is so exciting! A very big focus for us is to find items that can ensure a steady and growing stream of orders into the villages. The first couple of years it was very difficult to compete in low dollar value items at high volumes because of some of the dynamics associated with working in the environments that our teams are in.
Well our longest standing partner in India has made incredible strides and we are thrilled to announce that we can supply very large volumes of Hand Rolled Recycled Paper Pens and Standard or Organic Cotton Conference Bags at competitive market pricing while still meeting all of our developmental objectives.
It's very high tech for the teams and they are enjoying it immensely. We work with your graphic image to ensure the image on the outside of the pen and logo on the bag meet your specifications and then the team gets busy producing your order.
Pens range upward from $0.95 each based on volume and the bags $2.85 to $3.50 each depending on material and volume. Pricing includes your design on the pens and 2-colour screen print on the bags.
Delivery lead times are quite impressive as well. With the support of our clients, we are looking forward to expanding the number of village production units that will receive opportunity through this offering in 2011.
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UPCOMING EVENT:
You are Invited - October 20th, 2010
ZOË Alliance invites you and your colleagues as our guests to explore an innovative approach to increasing the impact of your promotional spending.
Enjoy a few moments of inspiration as we learn how to assist change agents in transforming their villages around the world with something as simple as our gift purchases.
This event is an excellent opportunity to:
Source new and unique gifts and promotional items ($0.95 - $99.00) Be a part of creating sustainable employment in villages around the world Turn your promotional budget into a powerful tool to help alleviate poverty See project leaders from Haiti, India and Guatemala
The event takes place on Wednesday, October 20, 2010 from 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm, with the presentation occurring between 6:00 pm - 6:30 pm.
Space is limited to 150 attendees so please follow this link for full details and RSVP soon. We hope to see you there! |
Recent Blog Posts
Have you been following the ZOË weekly blogs? It's a great way to keep in touch with the current activities of both ZOE Alliance and our founder, Angie.
Here are a couple of her more recent blogs that we think you would enjoy: Haiti Update - Jobs, Micro-loans and Housing Orphans and Guest Blog by Founders of Okenshield Management.
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Who is ZOË Alliance?
ZOË Alliance Inc. is a social enterprise that harnesses what we spend to help developing nations break the cycle of poverty.
ZOË Alliance helps people and companies transform impoverished
villages with their regular purchases. We stretch each dollar spent on
a personal or corporate gift three ways: to purchase a gift that tells
the story of hope; to create jobs with dignity in villages; and to
donate funds toward a school or village project.
We also help companies link their Corporate Social Responsibility
initiatives to the bottom line by making it easy to source high
quality, profitable products from producer groups in villages around
the globe.
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Contact Us
ZOË Alliance Inc.
15-75 Bayly Street West, Suite 279,Ajax, ON Canada L1S 7K7
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