Earlier this month, the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University hosted a daylong social impact conference featuring Seth Goldman, Honest Tea co-founder and president, as keynote.
“The Next Generation of Social Impact” was the theme of this year’s Innovating Social Change Conference, which took place at Kellogg on October 15th. The annual conference, now in its 12th year, is one of several student-led events at Kellogg.
Honest Tea’s Goldman encouraged conference attendees to target business practices toward social responsibility rather than making social impact a sideline consideration. “If you make $10 million and do something nice with $1 million, you’ve missed the mark,” he said. Coca-Cola, recognizing that environmental consciousness and social responsibility were becoming more important to their consumers, in March 2011 acquired Honest Tea, which has a recognized commitment to natural ingredients and fair-trade practices. According to Goldman, Coke’s acquisition was as much for Honest Tea’s brand message as it was to round out its beverage line-up.
The conference also featured a range of panel discussions, including one entitled “Money vs. Talent: Achieving Scale in Social Impact” moderated by Kellogg lecturer of social enterprise Jason Saul. Saul noted that more and more large corporations, like Coca-Cola, are recognizing that their consumers are demanding more social responsibility. “Companies are trying to bottle, package and sell social impact,” Saul said.
Panelists – such as Liam Krehbiel ’07, founder and CEO of venture philanthropy fund A Better Chicago – shared ways to harness corporate interest to increase the impact of social responsibility. On behalf of corporations, Krehbiel’s organization researches the best education nonprofits in the area to help companies achieve a greater impact. “They trust us to find the best organizations and make an impact with pooled resources,” Krehbiel said.
The mission and message of the recent conference dovetails with Kellogg’s new “Think Bravely” campaign, which suggests that to truly impact the world, future business leaders must couple strong business savvy with social responsibility.
Darell Hammond, founder of KaBOOM!, which uses corporate donations and employee volunteerism to build playgrounds, urged Kellogg students attending the conference to carry what they’d learned with them regardless of where their careers were headed. “Everything you touch, make better,” he said. “You don’t have to start a company to do that.”
To learn more about the Innovating Social Change Conference at Kellogg, click here.
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