Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, started the year with a provocative challenge to the CEOs of the world’s biggest and most influential companies: What’s your purpose? As Fink framed it in his open letter, companies need to have a compelling long-term vision for how their business will sustainably benefit all of its stakeholders, including shareholders, employees, customers, and the community.

Brands of all sizes and in all industries are increasingly being impacted by America’s divisive political, social and cultural storms. This new reality makes the roles of communications leaders like CCOs and CMOs as strategic decision makers, planners and guardians of a brand’s goodwill more vital—and more challenging—than ever before.

Earlier this year, The Conference Board and Mission Measurement announced a new partnership to benchmark social outcomes data. Using Mission Measurement’s Impact Genome Project® (IGP), the two organizations will collect and analyze data on the social outcomes of corporations’ charitable contributions. Companies are now invited to participate in the IGP and to share their impact measurement data.

“Culture” is the word of the moment: societal culture, organizational culture, corporate culture. The media blames culture—and rightfully so—when things at an organization go bad, referencing it as the reason for why people break the rules, disrespect others and go against societal values. But culture is also a good thing that leads to innovation, accomplishment and integrity. Managing culture is the responsibility of everyone in an organization and the board should set the tone.

Michigan nonprofit Eastern Market Corporation (EMC) was created in 2006 to revitalize Detroit’s public market and adjacent food district. EMC has pivoted from priming the pump to confronting this wave to ensure that the market’s core values are not lost and that racial equity is strengthened as a tsunami of new real estate investment hits the Eastern Market District.

Through corporate philanthropy, employers not only support the communities and societies in which they operate, they signal their company’s values and priorities to their own employees. By choosing to support people with disabilities through philanthropic efforts, companies also signal support for nearly a third of their workforce.

The 2018 Business Contributions to the Arts survey, conducted by The Conference Board and Americans for the Arts, is open until Friday, June 8. Please share your data regarding your organization's support for the arts to help us provide important benchmarking information to the corporate philanthropy and arts communities. The survey should take no more than 15-20 minutes to complete.

As part of staying up to date on corporate social responsibility and nonprofit program management best practices, we sat down for a chat with Jason Saul, Founder and CEO of Mission Measurement, and Alex Parkinson, Senior Researcher and Director of the Society for New Communications Research of The Conference Board (SNCR). Here’s what we learned about why it’s important to measure impact, what donors expect, current trends—and common mistakes.

At the spring meeting of The Conference Board’s Global CSR & Philanthropy Council, the group closely considered their next steps with regard to the SDGs. Members had provocative discussions stimulated by various guest speakers from organizations such as the United Nations Foundation, US-ASEAN Business Council, The Conference Board, and Palladium.

Employees who serve on nonprofit boards play a vital role in helping to achieve the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Yet, many companies do not include nonprofit board service in reports of volunteering for the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Companies need to recognize the valuable participation by their employees in advancing nonprofits and the SDGs through board service.