Are your social impact measurement efforts providing useful results? If not, it might be time to up your game. Moody's reinvented its CSR approach to mirror the company’s global footprint, be authentic to its culture, and align with its businesses. In doing so, the company engaged the Impact Genome Project to assess the Moody’s Foundation’s grant portfolio for alignment with its focus areas.

With government regulation lagging, technological outcomes depend on how businesses develop and apply them. It’s important that companies fill that gap by complementing their digital transformation journey with a governance arrangement that drives ethics and builds trust.

Are nonprofits—a crucial economic sector—getting the support they need to flourish? According to Independent Sector, there are over 1.6 million tax exempt nonprofit organizations in the United States—the third largest workforce in the country behind retail and manufacturing. Yet, the nonprofit sector is critically understaffed, under-capitalized, and overwhelmed. It needs support to fulfill its vital mission.

Do you have a firm grasp of the outcomes your societal investments are achieving, or are you still counting inputs and outputs? New research from The Conference Board, in collaboration with the Impact Genome Project and supported by Moody's, uses standardized metrics to measure social outcomes, enabling companies to more effectively report and benchmark the performance of their societal investments. Being able to compare social outcomes helps companies make smarter societal investments.

How does one of India's largest conglomerates, operating around the world, take care of citizens in its immediate community? The Aditya Birla Group has developed a model village in the neighborhood surrounding its Ultra Tech Cement Works Plant in Kotputli, providing vital facilities and infrastructure to residents, including education for women and children, a medical clinic, a farming program, and clean, fresh water.

Are you giving your grantees the right attention to help them succeed long term? To advance effective philanthropy, grantmakers must be as concerned with the entire grantee workforce as they are with grantee leadership. That means looking at the nonprofit through a workforce rather than a leadership lens and building relationships across the organization through surveys, site visits, and one-on-one conversations.

With labor markets tightening and labor costs rapidly rising in Central and Eastern Europe, the advantage of lower labor costs compared to the rest of the continent will further shrink over time and could mean that businesses will shift operations elsewhere.

Cities that are among the most well educated tend to attract a disproportionate share of headquarters jobs. For example, Washington, New York, San Francisco, and Minneapolis all have a far higher percentage of college educated workers than the national average. An exceptionally well-educated workforce is a stronger draw for firms making headquarters location decisions than one more typical of the population.

Companies conduct materiality assessment to identify, refine and assess potential environmental, social and governance issues which are sufficiently important that they should inform corporate sustainability strategy and reporting. The Conference Board surveyed 50 senior sustainability executives to examine the current trends of materiality practices.

Is the philanthropy industry on its way to solving its diversity and inclusion problem? New research from the Women's Philanthropy institute identifies ways that donors differ across race and ways they appear to behave in a relatively similar fashion, pointing to the fact that philanthropy is growing more aware of its diversity and funders and nonprofits would do well to find ways to maximize engagement with donors of all backgrounds.