As the riot itself unfolded on live television, the riot’s instigators and youth caught up in the fray made countless posts to Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere, recording and documenting their activities. Some of the images they posted were bizarrely compelling; others were undoubtedly evidence of criminal activity. (The ‘social media vigilantism’ of the following week has also been an interesting topic of vibrant discussion.) News of the riot quickly spread around the world, making cover stories in Australia, India and elsewhere. Vancouverites collectively hung their heads in shame that their fair city—which had received accolades for its positive celebrations during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games just 12 months before—should again showcase an ugly side.

Yet at the same time as the riot was unfolding, so too was the Clean Up Vancouver campaign. Launched on the night of the riots on Facebook, this simple campaign invited positive Vancouverites to come downtown the following morning to help clean up after their not-so-positive fellow citizens. By 7:00am, hundreds of people were downtown with brooms and dustpans; by noon, some reports suggested more than 10,000 had joined the Clean Up. Plywood boarding over the broken windows of one major retailer became the ‘Love Wall,’ on which people wrote messages of apology and respect.

This Jekyll and Hyde capacity of social media is both powerful and puzzling. It’s powerful in its capacity to rally thousands of people to positive action. Yet, it’s puzzling, because it as easily can be used to drive disruption. However and organization might choose to use social media and its unparalleled reach, posts and other content are there forever, for anyone to see. And it is precisely this unprecedented transparency that gives organizations pause. Should we open up?

In a recent keynote at the Institute of Fundraising‘s National Convention in London, UK, I spoke about one organization that seized the potential advantage of transparency—somewhat to its own surprise.

Charity: Water is a US NGO that provides clean drinking water to rural areas in some of the world’s poorest countries. They dig wells in countries of sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia. Each year, they run a ‘September Campaign’ to celebrate the anniversary of their founding (September 7). A key feature of the campaign is the live, online broadcast of Charity: Water’s latest well drilling project. For their first three years, this had been a tremendous morale- and awareness-building opportunity.

September 7, 2010, also happened to be Charity: Water founder Scott Morrison’s 35th birthday. So he was excited to be drilling a new well—to be broadcast live, online—in Moale, Central African Republic. Geologists had identified a perfect spot, where water was anticipated to be accessible between 500 and 700′ below the surface. A special drill was brought in that was capable of drilling to 800′, cameras were set up, and drilling began. It takes hours and hours to drill that far into the ground, but by 9:00pm, the drill had penetrated some 300′ into the ground. That’s when disaster struck.

The bore hole collapsed on itself. During the live broadcast. Supporters and donors around the world saw Charity: Water fail at their core service. The funds they’d donated went completely to waste. And there was no hiding from the damage.

The Charity: Water team began again, and worked through the night to make a second attempt. It also failed. And the following morning, Morrison stood in front of the camera—still broadcasting live—and shared his disappointment openly and honestly with his viewers. He expected to be rebuked, to lose key funders, and to suffer criticism from supporters. The opposite turned out to be true.

“We appreciate your transparency,” said one Twitter contact. “I think this is perhaps even more important than sharing your successes,” said a Facebook post. “Even with the best planning, scientific data and equipment, you can have a myriad of problems… thank you for sharing your challenges,” said a field engineer that supports Charity: Water’s work.

Rather than punishment, Charity: Water was congratulated for their hard work, and for honestly sharing that 5% of their well-drilling attempts do fail. They aren’t infallible.

Their website received more traffic that day than in the history of Charity: Water. Their support solidified even further. And their donations took a positive, upward turn.

This sort of transparency is daunting to many. The ‘old school’ public relations approach would be to bury a story like this: Failures were not to be shared; they were to be shunned! But that was never realistic. And today, ‘keeping a lid’ on such a story is impossible: Just one Tweet from one field operator at Charity: Water would make the story public. Rather than hiding from this transparency, Morrison and Charity: Water seized it as an opportunity to forge valuable connections with important stakeholders around the world. What may have appeared to be risky was really just an exercise in openness and honesty.

Every organization—in business, in the social sector, and otherwise—must acknowledge that this transparency is the new reality. Hiding from it is an ostrich-like, self-defeating exercise. Opening to it, and seizing its advantages is one way to build relationships of trust and goodwill.

Ultimately, transparency is about respect. As Scott Morrison said, “Perhaps people wanted us to fail…. I don’t think so. I think people just want to know the truth.”

Demands on non-profits and social service agencies are already overwhelming capacity. And those demands will soar in the coming decade as people migrate to urban centres looking for work.

The complexities inherent in these new population dynamics and their consequent social impacts are difficult to fathom. As with any other complex problems, smart practices will allow for effective solutions to emerge. One of those is the development of social enterprise, a nascent, but growing sector that in some pockets is even outperforming traditional commercial business. Already recognized as an important part of the ‘Third Sector’ in the UK, and flashing on to the policy radars of governments across North America, social enterprise is a useful alternative to charitable fundraising for many NGOs and not-for-profit organizations.

The simplest definition of a social enterprise is a for-profit business operated by and for the benefit of a not-for-profit or charity. Many examples exist: Thrift stores that flow their profits to a designated charity, gift stores and cafes in public institutions, and so on. However, the diversity of models and of the jargon used to describe these double and triple bottom line organizations is confusing at best and detrimental at worst. “Social enterprise” or “social venture?” Or corporate “social responsibility?” Or “social purpose business?” While the terminology has its advocates, three models seem to be emerging as dominant:

• Social Enterprises with Indirect Benefits are those operated at arms length from their parent charities or the issues they support. In Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, a working class community known for its runaway drug-related crime rates and as the destination for a multitude of barriered individuals, Pot Luck Cafe runs a catering business, the revenue and profits from which support hiring of local residents, a significant meals program, and a nutrition awareness program. While the catering business operates outside the neighbourhood, the indirect benefits of its work are diverse.
• Social Enterprise with Direct Benefits are those whose operations are its social programs. In the same Downtown Eastside neighbourhood, United We Can is a not-for-profit social enterprise that employs 22 local residents full-time, and more than 120 part-time in their bottle depot. Last year, over 1.6 million bottles and cans were redeemed through the depot by binners, creating an income stream that went directly into their pockets. Everyclick, a client of Octopus Strategies, has developed the Give as you Live® system, which helps online shoppers to generate charitable donations—at no cost to them. Online retailers simply agree to share a portion of their commission or revenues on purchases with the charity of each Give as you Live account-holders choice. The benefits are directly channeled to users’ favourite causes.
• Social Purpose Business Initiatives are those fueled either through the corporate social responsibility efforts of for-profit companies or their foundations. As companies move from chequebook philanthropy toward more engaged and mutually reinforcing programs of social engagement—and as they’re pressed to do so by concerned citizens, stakeholders and customers—their potential positive impact on social issues may be invaluable.

In each of these cases, “forward-looking organizations are aligning purpose with practical business programs, in service of profound community needs,” as has been asserted by David LePage of Enterprising Non-Profits in Vancouver. Social enterprises are a fundamental rethinking of the NGO space, in that they assume structured responsibility for funding programs that in a new era of conservatism and austerity, are no longer underwritten by governments.

Social enterprises are ambitiously confronting complex problems in myriad different ways. From the perspective of charitable fundraising, they provide examples of new models and new approaches that are replacing outdated modes of development. Smart fundraisers and not-for-profit leaders should be looking to these opportunities, particularly as the consider their capacity to develop much coveted unrestricted funding for their programs.

This is the second in a series of three posts that summarize a keynote presentation delivery July 7 to the National Convention of the Institute of Fundraising in London, UK.

Stories such as his strike a devastating blow to our faith in the goodness of humanity; sadly, it is too easy and far from accurate to dismiss Hamza’s story as the result of a deranged security officer. In fact, Amnesty has reported numerous other children and teenagers have been tortured and murdered since Hamza’s story broke around the world. So the problem is even more disturbing and complex than one would at first believe.

It is this complexity that fundraisers, activists and social change leaders face across a diverse range of issues and problems. From the Arab Morning to climate change to urban degradation, complex problems require distinct approaches from simple ones.

The Cynefin framework spells out a useful rubric for assessing four different types of problems:

1. Simple problems are like baking a cake, or raising funds for a program in an established charity. These problems are easily categorized, cause and effect are predictable, and best practices can be applied to resolve them.
2. Complicated problems are like landing an aircraft, or mounting a capital campaign for a new, major infrastructure project. Diverse factors must be analyzed and understood before good practices can be applied.
3. Complex problems are like raising a child, or resolving the crises spreading across the Middle East today. Cause and effect can only be assessed with the benefit of hindsight; we must respond without a full detailing of the problem, and allow the right practices to emerge as we work on solutions.
4. Chaotic problems have no systems-level cause and effect correlation. In situations like those faced by Banda Aceh in the days following the 2004 tsunami, equipped NGOs acted as best they could, analyzed how their efforts were working, and adjusted their approaches. They had to innovate in real time to deliver aid.

In the realm of fundraising, simple problems are easily addressed: Training for any fundraising designation will include learning of best practices that can be applied to simple problems. The same is essentially true for complicated problems, though these are more often addressed by teams who collectively can complete adequate analysis and assessment, before devising a plan. Chaotic problems necessarily require instinctive, rapid action; select NGOs such as CARE and the Red Cross are equipped to be this responsive, but each emergency requires different solutions. They learn and adapt in real time.

Complex problems, though, can only be addressed if diverse expertise, significant energy, openness to new ideas and approaches, and adaptive leadership are brought to bear.

During my keynote, I used the case of British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest to explain how complex problems can be addressed through focused, structured, multi-party collaborations. After the successful completion of the Rainforest Solutions Project’s 10-year campaign to save the Great Bear, the team wrote and published a book that looks back at the campaign, its structure, and seven key lessons that they learned in the development of the collaborative that united NGOs, industry, First Nations and government. To their seven, I’ve added three additional criteria to define this list of guidelines for developing effective collaborations in the face of complex challenges:

1. Be Bold: Paint a clear, concise and compelling vision of change. This will rally and focus the team.
2. Build Power: Real change requires real influence. Understand where power lies, and engage those groups and individuals in the collaborative.
3. Create Coalitions: Find strength in numbers.
4. Build Common Ground: Create alliances of ‘strange bedfellows’—and learn from each other.
5. Lead from Shared Values: Establish codes of conduct early and collectively. How we work is as important as what we do.
6. Be Proactive: Design and drive the solutions. Demonstrate leadership, and share management.
7. Practice Humility: Lose your ego. No individual or individual organization has the answers, and being right today doesn’t at all imply we’ll have the right ideas tomorrow.
8. Stay Positive: Persistent optimism is infectious.
9. Mobilize Learning: Complexity requires emergent solutions. Mistakes will be made. Everyone involved must learn from them.
10. Build In Objectivity: It’s easy to lose sight of the big picture, when you’re involved day-to-day. A control committee is a powerful objective auditor.

Complexity can be daunting and overwhelming, but with appropriate strategy and productive collaboration, complexity can be addressed and the major issues we face can be resolved.

Hosted at Hollyhock, June 8 – 12, SCI brought together a group of 55 remarkably diverse individuals, each of whom is working on one or more of the most significant challenges we face: From the need to rethink our organizations and how they’re structured, to unification of distinct generations in service of challenges bigger than each of them, to the recognition that adaptation to climate change will be as challenging as reversing it, the questions posed at SCI required both widely expansive thinking and deep, personal engagement. And it is precisely there that the greatest lessons of SCI 2011 began.

To engage our biggest challenges (global climate change, violent revolution and conflict, urban poverty and degradation, and so many others), each individual must engage far beyond themselves—and far beyond their individual organizations. For no individual or single organization has the answers. Yet to engage others and to develop coalitions and collaborations, we must first be intimately connected with ourselves: We must know our own strengths and limitations; we must be ready to evolve, change and learn; and we must be aware that important, powerful work requires energized, objective perspectives. It’s all too easy to get lost in the big picture.

The ‘excruciating joy’ of SCI came from the conference’s remarkable design: Over the course of five days, the cohort moved from abstract, theoretical, big picture thinking to strategic discussions of organizational capacity and design, to focused ‘inner work.’ The alignment of purpose and passion in these successive layers of complexity was exciting and inspiring but also challenging. The expertise and dedication of conveners Stina Brown, Joel Solomon and Cara Pike made possible rare conversations and connections. Putting the personal into the organizational context, and the organizational into the global was a massive shifting of perspective for some. Many left Hollyhock humbled beyond belief, inspired beyond words, and ready to take up new modes of thinking, working and collaborating.

Collaboration itself was another key theme. In the face of the most complex problems mankind has ever confronted, simple answers don’t exist. Instead, effective resolutions require careful study and sensitive responses; “emergent practices” will present themselves as they percolate up out of wide-reaching collaborations. Yet, collaboration itself is elusive: As western mindsets continue to push for control of leadership, management and strategy, we simultaneously forestall inclusive and appropriate adaptations. As we explored together what those adaptations might be, we explored history, philosophy, management practices, group psychology, and so much more. The vast integrations made for densely scheduled days, and long, energized nights.

Sometimes, the adaptations we need will appear in enduring organizations—the ‘red dwarves’ that burn long and bright, fading only as their energy expires. (A metaphor presented in the opening plenary by Purpose’s Alnoor Ladha.) At other times, they’ll flash into being like ‘super novae,’ momentarily catalyzing massive change and evolution, before being shuttered, and allowing the energy that created them to move on to the next big thing. The very recognition that our organizations may or may not be required to endure—that strategy can be short term or long term, and indeed is stronger for this perspective—was a vital lesson for many at Social Change Institute.

As I return from Hollyhock into my work, I’m struggling to reconcile the seemingly boundless capacity of the SCI delegates with the every day minutiae of running a company. But I’m inspired and energized by the ‘Positive Mammals’ who showed up, and I’m grateful for our community.

It’s been nearly three years since I first visited Hollyhock—for Social Venture Institute, an experience about which I’ve posted before. Then, I was amazed and grateful to find a deeply like-minded group of individuals who were driven to unite the value of business with the business of values, to use our companies for the collective good. On returning from SCI this week, I have encountered (or realized) a new version of myself—one infinitely more comfortable in complexity, and spectacularly more effective. As is often the case, we knew when leaving Hollyhock that ‘reentry’ might be difficult. It is. It’s excruciating. Excruciating and joyful.

Octopus Strategies is proud to sponsor Social Change Institute and Social Venture Institute. Join us at Hollyhock in September for what promises to be another breakthrough gathering of visionary leaders and social entrepreneurs.

Public sector cuts, restricting funding and stagnant donations means that it’s now even more important for charities to find new revenue streams. In particular, technology innovation has, and will continue to support our charities and enable them to find ways to increase funds.

In a political / social context where government funding for charities is shrinking, and during an economic period when individuals have less money to share with their favourite causes, innovative approaches to fundraising are essential to charities’ operations. Gowers argues–and we agree–that social enterprise is a valuable part of the solution.

Her firm, Everyclick, “turns search-based advertising into a revenue stream for any charity.” Everyclick’s Give as You Live tool, which Octopus helped to brand and launch, operates in the background as users shop as normal. Without changing their habits at all, Everyclick facilitates the donation of a small portion of their purchase price to the charity of their choice. The application alone has the capacity to raise £1.25 billion in unrestricted funding for UK charities this year.

Read more of Gowers’s Guardian article here. Or learn more by contacting us.

To make this meaningful contribution to the emerging social enterprise sector, Octopus Strategies partnered with Enterprising Non-Profits to produce the Social Enterprise Marketing Toolkit, which we unveiled on November 5 at the first ever Social Enterprise Meetup in Vancouver.

Throughout Canada’s western-most Province of British Columbia, there are some 240 established social enterprises, each dedicated to addressing or supporting vital social and community projects and priorities. ‘Social Enterprise’ is defined as a traditional business, operated by a not-for-profit either to directly fulfill its mission, or to channel funds back into the purse of the not-for-profit itself.

In other countries, social enterprise is well established—especially in the UK, where it’s now seen as a vital priority for the national government. By contrast, it is a slowly emerging sub-sector in Canada. Yet in a context of economic constraint, and amid budget cuts to government funding for arts, cultural and social organizations, social enterprise presents significant opportunities.

Made up of five videos and a series of accompanying worksheets, the Toolkit introduces foundational marketing theory, and presents specific examples from BC’s social enterprises and some of Octopus Strategies’ proprietary tools. Some of these tools, such as the Value Spectrum™ and the Message Matrix™ involve approaches that have previously been available only to paying clients.

The Toolkit has been designed to make marketing and communications expertise accessible and applicable for social sector leaders who often have no training or background in marketing. They get pragmatic and actionable techniques they can apply immediately in their social enterprises.

The Toolkit has been launched as a ‘beta’ product and is available online at Octopus Strategies or at Enterprising Non-Profits. Feedback and suggestions for improvement or clarification can be sent to info@enterprisingnonprofits.ca or setoolkit@octopusstrategies.com.

Established to celebrate all that is good in humanity, and to find ways to unite people, nations and cultures through the power of sport, the Olympic movement is arguably one of the great achievements of international cooperation.

So I was intrigued to see a black envelope in the mail today with a large Hockey Canada logo emblazoned on the front. Unfortunately, its contents seem to contradict all the openness and the spirit of community of the Olympic ideals.

Presented by the Vancouver Board of Trade (of which I’ve been a member up until this year) and Concord Place, the brochure invites me to “enjoy an exclusive, limited-time offer” to “enjoy the 2010 Winter Olympics… in the middle of the action…. For the entire 17 days of the Olympics [I can] have [my] own reserved seating area for 8 guests. Complimentary gourmet food and beverages will be available while [I] take in all the action on screen and on the stage” in the Molson Canadian Hockey House.

And this can be mine—and I assume yours, too—in exchange for nothing more than $68,000! (Plus “applicable taxes and fees,” of course!)

It’s hard to know where to begin….

We could talk about Molson Canadian—’Canada’s beer’—and how this whole offer betrays their ethos of focusing on ‘real’ Canadians. We might comment on the fact that almost nothing in this piece adheres to the Olympic’s trade marks and brand standards. (The next sentence gives the correct name of February’s event; this brochure does not. Not even once.) Or we could complain about the commercialization of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games—something that’s clearly a concern for many Vancouver residents and British Columbians, but that’s rarely so blatantly expressed.

But in the end, I think it’s most important to say this: Molson Canadian Hockey House is an ill-conceived cash-grab. At a time when Canadians and Vancouverites are hurting, when unemployment is on the rise, and when economic recovery is uncertain at best, could the Board of Trade, Concord Place and Molson not think of something more responsible to do with their marketing dollars?

In fact, let me put that question another way: Will Hockey Canada, the International Ice Hockey Federation, the Vancouver Board of Trade, Concord Place and Molson put the dollars they raise to good use after the Closing Ceremony?

You want to support your favourite causes, but how can you? The money you could afford to give is gone. Sometimes, money does feel like everything.

If you’re feeling the need to cut back on your planned giving, don’t worry: Your relationship with your charity can deepen during tough times, making your contributions and commitment even more valuable to the cause in the long run.

Firstly, call your charity and be honest. Let them know you need a giving holiday. Most donors are feeling the pinch, but knowing will help your charity to budget more realistically. Take your time. Let them know if you need six months or two years. And call them back if you need more. They’ll appreciate the information, and can use this foresight to ensure their projects remain as unaffected as possible.  And you can breathe a sigh of relief that your lack of funds won’t come as a horrible surprise potentially undoing the good you’ve been investing in all these years.

And though your financial contribution may be on pause, there are still ways to give to charity that still give you returns on that warm and fuzzy feeling! Here are a few examples….

1. Give Blood. One of my all time favourite strap lines is for the Canadian Blood Services: Blood, it’s in you to give. Yes it is. In fact, this is one of the few donations that turn you a profit as a donor. You give something that you don’t even notice is gone and leave with as many cookies and cups of juice as you can hold!
2. Give hair. You can replace it easily! Recently I cut off 12 inches of hair for Locks of Love.  I knew that my giving abilities were decreasing so I looked for other ways to get money to a charity close to my heart – Cancer Research. Asking my friends and loved ones for support, I raised over £1,400 and donated my hair to make a wig for a child with alopecia or who is going through chemo. I can grow more hair, but I knew cancer research couldn’t stop simply because of a recession.
3. Take direct action. People give to people they know.  Finding $500 to give to your favourite cause may simply be too much right now. (Couch cushions have been raided and there’s simply not much left!)  Undertaking an event that only takes your time and commitment is a fantastic way of giving. Donors may not be in a rush to sign up to a regular gift right now, but they will still buy Girl Guide cookies from the girl next door or support their best friend in a 5k run.  Be creative. Dig out your runners and train for a walk for the Parkinson’s Society, ask your kids to organise a sponsored silence to raise money for The Canadian Association of the Deaf (win win on this one!) or sponsor a weight loss with money for each pound lost going to the Heart and Stroke Foundation. Find something you can do and ask the people you love to help you. Together, you can hit your target before you know it.
4. Reach out to your community. Offer your time, your experience and your manpower. Families will be staying closer to home and foregoing the annual summer holiday. Why not see if there are projects to clean up your local park? People who have lost their jobs need help shaping up their CVs: Call your local shelter to see if you can be of service. Or simply call around and see whom you can help. Shelters, schools, rec-centers, and charity shops all require local support to keep running. Whilst the job they ask you to do may not be the Florence Nightingale vision you went in with, they asked because it’s important and they need your help. Check out Urbantastic for examples in and around Vancouver.
5. Make your night out an extra good one. Just because times are tight doesn’t mean you have to stop enjoying yourself. Why not take advantage of some great events that can often be much more affordable than you think to attend? I spent a recent evening drinking champagne in Mayfair with The Duke of Westminster whilst supporting Asian elephants with The Elephant Family.  Tickets were an affordable £20 including champagne and amazing food from local restaurants. Or enjoy a sinful buffet and raise money for Cancer Research in Canada through Keep on Swimming. Remember that just because your donation comes in exchange for a great night out or a service you need regardless doesn’t make it less valuable.

Whatever you choose to do, remember that just because you can’t give now, doesn’t mean you won’t be able to in the future. Get involved with local and national causes. Find out which charities mean more to you. Give them your time, and your commitment and when the time comes that you can give them money, your relationship will be that much more beneficial for both parties.

There’s benefit to you, too: Donors who feel engaged with a charity and participate in more than one way (giving and volunteering or campaigning and making a legacy commitment) have a considerably longer life-time and life-time value than those who just give.

You’re worth more than you think.

First, she lost her husband in a hunting accident, which left her to raise their five children with only the help of her sister. Second, by the time Alex was twelve, the Soviet state had seized her family’s land, turning it into a collective farm.

Together with her children, and especially bright young Alex, Taisiya knew that learning would bring freedom from destitution. For Alex, this conviction led to a strong academic career in mathematics, philosophy and literature. But his childhood had also stoked in Alex a rebellious fire of independence.

In 1945, Alex penned a letter to his friend, critical of “the whiskered one.” He was accused of anti-Sovietism for speaking ill of Joseph Stalin, and sentenced to an eight-year term of forced labour in the camps of northern Siberia.

It was here, though, that the strength of Alex’s character began to shine. His autobiographical tale of his time in the camps became one of the most celebrated and revered works in all of the 20th century—even endorsed by Nikita Kruschev.

It would be the first of many politically charged works for Alex. His life continued to be filled with turbulence, expulsions and illness. But the Nobel-winning voice of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was the clarion conscience both of east and west until it went quiet forever on August 3, 2008.

Doing the Right Thing

Solzhenitsyn endured the very worst of experiences. But those experiences also gave him the perspective to risk imprisonment, and the perseverance to suffer expulsion from the USSR, his beloved home.

In our lives in business, doing the right thing can often fly in the face of doing the profitable thing. Certainly, in cases like Worldcom and Enron, lines have been crossed that should never be approached. But even in the day-to-day affairs of business, that for which we and our customers are passionate can compete with the profits we seek.

Take, for example, the experience of Tom Katzenmeyer, vice-president of investor relations at Limited Brands, a $10.1B American apparel firm, and owner of Victoria’s Secret. In 2004, Limited Brands had been the target of ForestEthics, an advocacy group, which called on it (in a powerful PR campaign) to print its 400m catalogues a year on paper from more sustainable sources.

Katzenmeyer was smart enough to recognize they were right, and the two organizations have been working together ever since.

The 21st Century organization faces unprecedented scrutiny. No longer is it enough simply to deliver profits; now social and environmental challenges are paramount public concerns, and the public is holding companies to account for their actions.

Smart corporations are embracing activists’ perspectives (which are increasingly the viewpoints of the general public), and working with their critics to adapt their businesses to a new reality. Limited Brands is but one example. Ikea and WWF is another. Build-a-Bear is one more.

These partnerships are not about charity or philanthropy. They’re about adapting for-profit businesses to a rapidly evolving new reality: Businesses today cannot hide from the scrutiny of an increasingly aware public. Leading businesses are finding authentic, value-building ways distinguish themselves as good citizens. They’re hedging financial risk by anticipating what will become regulated in the future, and stepping ahead of the legal curve.

And they’re earning loyal customers in the process.

Like Solzhenitsyn, great brands will do what is right, confident that they will reap the rewards in the end.

Smart brands are forging partnerships with cause-driven organizations for their mutual gain. Choosing the right partner can mean the difference between a reputation for charity (which is fine) or an authentic connection with a well-aligned cause (which is better). Octopus is working to unite a number of organizations to forge such alliances, driven by our AVID System. Contact us to learn more.

In 1998, these observations led John to find a way to help.

John believed that the key to ending the cycle of poverty, and to giving control over their lives to the world’s most disadvantaged, was education.

John was a man of insight, whose career to that point had been one that provided a unique perspective on how to address a challenge of such significant scale.

Instead of teaching individual children to read and write, John decided to partner with communities, helping them to teach many.

Instead of perpetuating cultural biases, he decided to promote young girls’ education, providing them with long-term scholarships.

And instead of choosing to change a life, John Wood decided to change the world.

Today, some eight years after he founded Room to Read, John’s organization has built more than 140 schools; established more than 2,230 new libraries; donated more than 1.2 million local language and English children’s books; and impacted the lives of more than 755,000 children.

And this month, Room to Read is featured as a repeat winner of Fast Company Magazine’s Social Capitalist Awards.

What are you making room for?

In our work with some of Canada’s leading brands, we are continually reminded of three simple truths:

1. As leaders of your organizations, it is your responsibility to find the unique talents in each of your people, and to find the room to let them flourish.

2. The culture of an organization must be nurtured carefully if there is to be room for excellence.

3. The most magnificent lives are lived by those who make room to listen to their hearts.

As the business community accelerates again to its typically frantic pace, we propose pausing to take note of this year’s Social Capitalist Award winners—25 organizations that are changing the world for the better.

Do you or your organization make room to help organizations like these? If so, we can make room for you to see Coldplay in Vancouver’s GM Place.

Send us evidence of a contribution made since January 1, 2006 to any charitable society (Social Capitalist Award winner or not) and we’ll enter you into a random draw for a pair of tickets to see Coldplay, January 26 (a $180 CDN value).

Octopus Strategies will get things started: We’re pleased to announce our $20,000 in-kind donation to the BC Epilepsy Society for their current fiscal year, and we’ll be writing cheques for $100 each to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank, which feeds more than 9,000 of our less fortunate neighbours each year, and Family Services of the North Shore.

Every $100 you donate by January 19 earns an entry—just let us know before the draw takes place January 20.

Learn more about Room to Read and the 24 other winners by clicking on the links to the right.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” — Aristotle.

Make 2006 the year excellence becomes habitual for you.