Last week we were pleased to have LBG Australia & New Zealand’s Associate Director, Jessica Pattison to lead a discussion about business impact in the community at the last BACS Talking Pod for 2015.

Jess kicked off her presentation with some of the key highlights and trends from LBG’s recent Annual Review of Community Investment, using LBG’s impressive microsite with 10 years of benchmarked data and analysis.

Those in attendance were keen to understand the latest approaches to community investment programmes and Jess highlighted a number of interesting examples from her work with LBG members.

In particular realestate.com.au’s volunteer bank was discussed – an innovative approach to volunteer leave whereby each employee receives one day of paid leave to volunteer in a community, with the company wide allocation of volunteer leave being placed into a bank so that if an employee’s volunteering activity requires more than one day of leave, they can apply to the bank for the extra time needed to make a difference.

The group also discussed Creating Shared Value as an approach gaining traction, given the finding from LBG’s community investment survey that found 60% of members are focusing on strategies to create shared value by addressing a social need, whilst also enabling an economic return for the company. Countdown discussed details of their food rescue programme as a fantastic example of such an initiative.

Jess went on to share details of LBG’s social impact methodology, and examples of its use working with Qantas, Unicef, Microsoft, Plunket and New Zealand Post to name a few.

It was interesting to hear about how the process enables an opportunity for an open discussion between partners where clarification around strategic intent and measurement intent can be achieved.

One attendee agreed that there exists great opportunity for community investment partnerships to do this work up front, even when partners have been working together for some time, as it creates a shared vision.

The BACS Talking Pod enabled a thorough discussion between sectors, all against the beautiful backdrop of ANZ’s view of the Hauraki Gulf.

Our thanks to our BACS Business Member ANZ for kindly hosting the event and our BACS Partner LBG.

Annual Review of community investment in NZ and Australia here.

Presentation of social impact methodology at the BACS Talking Pod here.

Website: www.lbg-nz.co.nz