sweetFrog  Premium Frozen Yogurt ranks #1 in Restaurant Magazine’s Annual Ranking of Fastest Growing Establishments.  This is sweetFrog’s fourth year of unprecedented growth, ranking it #1 on Restaurant Magazine’s fastest growing restaurant concepts this year.

What’s their secret to this kind of success?  Along with high-quality premium yogurt,  Community Engagement and Giving Back are core to sweetFrog’s growth strategy.   A “good neighbor” policy of community engagement permeates day to day operations at sweetFrog.  sweetFrog is a “network of mom and pop shops who are invested in their local community”, says James Denison, PR/Social Media Associate.

Just last week, sweetFrog commemorated the opening of their 300th location by partnering with Share our Strength’s (SOS) “Dine Out For no Kid Hungry Day” program to help connect kids with meals.  The “300 for 300,000 Campaign” was launched to help feed many of our nation’s hungry children.

Participating sweetFrog locations donated proceeds from sales on Sunday, September 22, 2013 to SOS.  The goal was to help raise enough money to connect as many as 300,000 meals to children.  A portion of the proceeds raised will remain in the communities where they were raised.

Other in store events included:

-          Canned food drives, with food given to local food banks

-          In-store donations from customers were collected on behalf of SOS

-          Customers participation was rewarded through a sweepstakes  with thee grand-prize winners earning  100 cups of sweetFrog yogurt

Kudos to employees of the Lawrenceville, GA store who donated their tip jars for the entire week to SOS.

“We are a young company, and this is our first undertaking to harness the philanthropic power of our network of stores throughout the country,” Cha said.  “We have high hopes that our part in this national program will make a meaningful difference in the lives of many, many children.”  says, Derek Cha, founder and CEO of sweetFrog.

About sweetFrog

As the preeminent premium frozen yogurt retailer in the country (recently named by The Daily Meal as “America’s Best Frozen Yogurt”), sweetFrog provides an unparalleled experience with every cup of yogurt. Since its 2009 founding in Richmond, Va. by entrepreneur Derek Cha and his wife Annah, sweetFrog has expanded to 300 stores in the United States, Great Britain and the Caribbean.  To learn more about sweetFrog, visit http://sweetfrogyogurt.com.

About No Kid Hungry

No child should grow up hungry in America, but one in five children struggles with hunger. Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry® campaign is ending childhood hunger in America by ensuring all children get the healthy food they need, every day. The No Kid Hungry campaign connects kids in need to effective nutrition programs like school breakfast and summer meals and teaches low-income families to cook healthy, affordable meals through Cooking Matters.  This work is accomplished through the No Kid Hungry network, made up of private citizens, public officials, nonprofits, business leaders and others providing innovative hunger solutions in their communities. Join us at NoKidHungry.org.

About GIVINGtrax

GIVINGtrax makes it easy to give back at work.  We are the only social network

The Washington State Auto Dealers Association tracks auto dealer giving – they give back heavily. Who would have thought that auto dealers are one of the biggest supporters of our communities? You can see their impact at WSADA.  Washington Auto Dealers Give Back

What surprised me the most was hot much they give and to such a wide variety of causes, from Boys & Girls Clubs to Humane Societies. The next time you’re in need of a new car, we invite you to check out one of these dealers that are making an impact.

Check out this new, Tacoma startup that is working to link the intentions of business with the efforts of nonprofits and the power of consumers.  GIVINGtrax™ uses the power of technology to enable companies to begin measuring the impact of community engagement in a tangible way. 

I have heard from many business owners, especially small businesses, that they are committed to supporting worthy community organizations, but they really don’t have a sense of how their contributions are making a difference for their communities or their bottom line. This new tool offers firms of all sizes the opportunity to leverage technology to begin making the link between the two.

There used to be an argument that the social responsibility of business is to maximize value (profits) for owners. There are two problems with this argument: 1) it assumes an either/or position that is patently false and, 2) it takes a short-term approach to value.

The new paradigm for business is that the two are critically linked.  A firm's social responsibility has a dramatic effect on its reputation and reputation is the single most important driver of long-term value.  Successful business leaders of tomorrow will not measure success by the next quarterly report.  They will use a new kind of measurement that accounts for the value of very tangible, but difficult to measure, factors like reputation.

GIVINGtrax™  is going to be a useful tool for calculating that value.

This time of year we hear many businesses talking about “giving back to the community”.  While I totally admire the sentiment and the intention, I wish we could change that language.  In order to give something back, you must have first taken it.  The implication when we speak of businesses giving back to the community is that they have taken something of value from the community.  The exact opposite is true.

Business (done legally, ethically and well) creates value for a community.  For trade to occur, the buyer and the seller must be better off after the transaction, and if both are better off, value has been created.  Multiply this by the billions of trades that occur every day you can see that commerce creates tremendous value in our communities.

Why then do we say that a business must “give back”?  I think some of the reason is the colloquial use of the term, but I think some lies deeper in society’s belief that business somehow takes from the greater good and needs to contribute back.  This belief is supported by the actions of the few bad actors who push the boundaries of business ethics, have blatant disregard for the law and do all that they can to privatize profits while pushing the costs of business onto society.  

So what does this mean for the “good business”?  Opportunity! 

The opportunity to contribute to your community in a way that aligns with your values, your business model and your strategies will leverage the value of “good business” to build your brand and your reputation as an honorable place to do business.  The market will reward you because you will differentiate your brand from the stereotypes and biases about “greedy” business people who will do anything to make a dollar.

I fully believe that corporate philanthropy is a good thing; I just don’t think that it is giving back.  I also don’t think it is enough.  Writing a check to a few good causes and “spraying money all over” may make you feel good, but it certainly isn’t how you would approach any other business problem.  In any other realm you would be strategic about your investments; you would make sure they align with your strategic initiatives, that they are providing ample return and that they are well managed. 

The Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP) www.corporatephilanthropy.org, which was founded by Paul Newman in 1998, reports on corporate giving each year and in their recent report on 2011 giving, there were four major trends: 1) corporations are giving more, 2) non-cash giving is more volatile than cash giving, 3) there were fewer grants, for more dollars, and 4) corporations expected to give the same amounts in 2012. 

The Center for Leadership & Social Responsibility research has demonstrated that the larger a company, the more strategic they are with their giving.  It is time for the economic engine of our local communities (small- and medium-sized businesses) to start incorporating some of that strategic thinking into their philanthropy and in all the ways that they are engaged with their communities.

Stop “giving back” and start engaging the community with purpose.  We’ll all be better off.

What is CSR?

As the director of the University of Washington Center for Leadership & Social Responsibility, that is focused on corporate social responsibility (CSR) I hear this question often. I like the question because the answer isn’t concrete (e.g. 2+2=4), but rather is the start of a conversation. The question is somewhat analogous to “What is red?” or “Who should be president?”

There isn’t a right answer, only your own viewpoint that is based upon your experience, your perspective and your biases.

The dialogue that flows from this question is often much more rich and enlightening than that with a definitive “right” answer.

There are, however, a few themes in the conversations: Sustainability * Governance * Citizenship * Stakeholders * Social Good * Philanthropy * Environment * Transparency * Human Rights *

CSR is not a function of business like accounting or marketing, it is a representation of the soul of a
business, like values or principles. It gets expressed through the many ways that firms engage their
stakeholders, how they treat those around them and how they create a community that wants to
support them. CSR done well does not create shareholder and social value because it figures out new
techniques, strategies, messages or markets. It leverages the value that exists in the marketplace that
rewards firms who share consumers’ values and punishes firms who defy them.

The social responsibility of business is to engage in mutually beneficial exchange that creates value for
all in an ethical way without burdening someone else with the negative results of the transaction. Think
about that statement for a second – read it again. It is both an aspiration and a challenge.

The most challenging part of the statement is the part about capturing the “negative externalities”
(my favorite economic term!) The more we know about negative externalities (carbon emissions,
slave labor, de-forestation, water use, unethical financial instruments…I could go on), the more we are
demanding through regulation and the marketplace that firms minimize those effects and account for
those costs.

We have headed down this path, sometimes kicking and screaming, since the early 70’s. The pace
accelerated in the 90’s with the advent of the internet and the availability of information. It has been
the recent past, however, that has super-charged the pace of CSR due to the instantaneous availability
of information and the ability to engage as consumers in global “viral” campaigns.

The face of CSR has changed and continues to change. It used to be defined as “giving back” through
philanthropy and good deeds. The new world requires a much more holistic approach that leverages
authentic values, engages stakeholders in solving problems and treats consumers as partners in solving
world problems through the power of commerce.

This is a big task that will require a team effort. I think we are up to it, and I hope you will engage in a
conversation about what your definition of CSR is today and what it might be tomorrow.