Why Singapore? Why a “Global Pro Bono Network”?
Last week, C@rma gathered with 35 other organisations from 27 countries to share best practices around Pro Bono. We met participants from Chile, Peru, US, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, China, Australia, etc. It was a strange feeling to be among professionals knowing exactly what Pro Bono is, its advantages and the difficulties to implement it.
The Global Pro Bono Network is an initiative driven by the BMW Foundation and the Taproot Foundation. For me, Taproot is a little bit the Google of the Pro Bono. Its founder, Aaron Hurst, was the first to advocate the notion of professionals giving their skills to support NGOs beyond the usual legal notion. During the last 14y, they have provided the equivalent of 150m USD of Pro Bono hours in the US. A real example. Together with the BMW Foundation, they are driving the Pro Bono movement around the globe by supporting local organizations with their knowledge and peer network. The Global Pro Bono network is a select group of pro bono providers from around the world who actively participate in a collaborative effort to share best practices and learn how to drive the Pro Bono movement forward.
C@rma has been a member of this network since last year. Due to our regional characteristics, we are also part of both the European chapter and the Middle East/North Africa/Turkey one.
The aim of the summit is to share best practices, learn from other Pro bono organisations or from the corporate firms present (this year GE, JP Morgan, P&G, Macquarie, GSK, etc.) and get inspiration. We all have different ways of working and different experiences but we are all motivated by the same dream of making Pro Bono widely known and used.
On the first day, we were welcomed in the offices of Autodesk in Solaris.
The building itself was amazingly inspiring with its continuous spiral landscaped terrace (see picture). Autodesk was the first to inspire us with the efforts they are making to “change the world. They were followed by corporate firms explaining how they are developing Pro Bono: we had for example P&G and an Interbank Not for Profit Director Program. We were also introduced to Toolbox foundation which is actually a Belgian initiative expanded in India, working quite the same way as C@rma. I enjoyed the part of the written interview about them “Volunteers must not simply assume the role of a consultant—diving into non-profits, immediately highlighting problems and directing solutions. Rather, both parties must exercise humility in their discussions when identifying problems and proposing solutions. To facilitate more meaningful discussions, Toolbox also advises its volunteers not to bombard non-profits with technical jargon and terminology.”
We also listened Pro bono Lab and Passerelles and Competences talking about their program with the government (“La France s’engage”).
During the afternoon, we had the opportunity to review the commitments we made last year..not always easy...Last year’s topic was all about the need to partner with the government to make sure Pro Bono would be supported and would reach a broader spectrum. This did not work out for us last year, we will try again this year to work more with municipalities. If you have some ideas let us know!
We spent the evening at Google, getting more info about Billion + change, an initiative driven by the US Point of light. They called on companies to “Power the Change” and do even more to harness the power of pro bono. They have inspired 500 (can you imagine, 500!) companies to give more than USD2bn worth of Pro Bono services, a real pledge; this is something like 30 million of hours of services! I would dream to reach 10% of that in Turkey :-). The evening was also the opportunity to reveal the logo of the Global Pro Bono network. Thank you Chris!
I also had the opportunity to discuss with Jaime from Chile about the way they are developing intrapreneurship within companies with Pro Bono. The concept is almost the same as C@rma’s except the corporate volunteers need to find the project by themselves and are encouraged and mentored during the whole process. Maybe something we could start here as well.
The next day, we went on the field to visit a great social entrepreneur: bettr barista. They noticed that the taste for coffee was developing fast and took the opportunity of this new fashion to train disadvantaged women in Barista. They go beyond work skills, adopting a whole-person approach that combines professional coffee education with life and emotional management skills, and physical training (yoga and self defense). They follow them up to 1 year after their training through internship and real job. In order to finance that, they are also training for money other future Barista (they have the SCAE and SCAA certifications), selling coffee and machines. Great example of social entrepreneurship.
The afternoon we brainstormed in small groups around some challenges we have, everyone animating or participating as (s)he wants to. We discussed about ways to price our services, how to involve corporate firms at global level, what kind of training for volunteers, how to start from zero, etc.
The most magical moment of the evening was clearly Antoine from Pro Bono lab, singing the Pro Bono song:
(...)
When companies are responsible,
Impact & Change become feasible,
Entrepreneurs may dream bigger,
social leaders grow superpowers”
During the last day, we worked on the metrics of a Pro Bono program (yes, we too have to find the best ones!) and our commitments for next year; For C@rma, it is mainly about improving our corporate governance with better “staff” structure, annual report, offices, board?, etc.
We also worked on what we could all do on a regional level. C@rma is in the Middle East/North Africa/Turkey region. We invited the other countries of that region to come over during our Pro bono week from May the 23rd to May the 27th and potentially invite also corporate firms from these countries for a full day workshop on what Pro Bono is...let's see…
We are also part of the European chapter where we are preparing the European Pro Bono summit in Paris in November.
These were intensive 3 days (and long evenings)..where the main take away were sometimes discovered outside the main sessions when discussing casually with all these fellows from around the world.Now, I have plenty of ideas….so stay tuned for all our new projects (and if you want to be part of it, let us know..we always need more people!)
As conclusion, I would like to use Samantha Lee’s words, president of Conjunct Consulting in Singapore: “If we succeed, we will create a social sector that is innovative, effective and progressive. But more importantly, if we succeed, we will create a generation of people who will be willing to step up, to find their cause, to nurture skills and to commit to creating positive social impact.”
