All Briefs

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.

How would you react if CNN ran a sensational, one-sided story about your organization? When this happened to the Mayo Clinic in 2018, their response was swift and multi-pronged. Amy Davis, head of communications at Mayo, tells the story and offers crisis management advice, starting with this: First, focus on your employees to make sure they feel supported.

In the face of data privacy compliance, do you take the easy route and do the bare minimum, or do you innovate? New research from The Conference Board Marketing and Communications Center has found that while 58 percent of the US marketing, tech, and compliance executives we surveyed agreed that regulatory compliance offers an opportunity for innovation, most haven’t yet taken the next step to actually turning customer privacy concerns into a competitive advantage.

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.

When it comes to gender diversity on public company boards, there is good news and bad news, according to LeaderXXchange. Among the world’s largest public companies gender leadership scores are climbing and most companies have formal diversity policies. However, there is a lot more that must be done.

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.

What do you think of when you hear "Los Angeles"? For many, it's Hollywood, beaches, and palm trees. But the booming metropolis faces a large homeless population, is on the frontline of the immigration issue, and has a troubled school district and aging infrastructure. Companies can help solve some of these issues by collaborating with the local government and nonprofits delivering innovative solutions.

Each day in the U.S., about 10,000 baby boomers retire. On the upside, this exodus opens considerable opportunities for young, rising stars to climb the corporate ladder. At the same time, their rapid advancement highlights the need for company leadership to often re-examine their strategies for developing future leaders.