The last couple of months have been event-ful in the literal sense! At the end of May, we held our Build Better Summit on Partnerships, followed by our week-long Global Summit in June – thanks to sponsors you can now register to access the events’ digital learning materials. And just last week, we partnered with Standard Chartered on their Futuremakers Forum, a three-day online event that brought together business leaders with young people to find out what business can do to unleash the potential of young people to succeed in the future of work.
These online events gave us a chance to connect with existing members, and to welcome many more newcomers into our 30,000+ community.
For the newcomers benefit and as a reminder to our long-standing members here are FIVE WAYS TO ENGAGE with Business Fights Poverty.
CONVENINGS
Since the pandemic, our events have gone online. It’s important to us that they are free to attend live, and we have made a real push to be inclusive, both in terms of our speakers and our audience. Our Global Summit 2021 was our most diverse Rebuild Better event yet.
Register to join our next convenings:
- Our Goals Summit to coincide with the UN General Assembly, 20-24th September
- Our Rebuild Better: Climate Justice Summit taking place in November – at the date of publishing we are only 101 days away from COP26!
Our events are central to our work, but are far from all that we offer to unlock new opportunities for business and social impact.
CIRCLES
Our peer circles are private safe-space groups of six people working in multinational companies, who are all wrestling with the same social impact challenge. Facilitated by our Director of Thought Leadership, Katie Hyson, they provide regular online gatherings over a six-month period, tapping into practical advice from peers and carefully selected experts.
At the moment, we are running peer circles on tackling gender-based violence in the workplace and supply chains, and climate justice. We are also in planning stages for two new peer circles, on living wages and on partnering to respond in times of crisis.
- If you’d like to join one of the new circles or suggest a topic, please contact katie([at])businessfightspoverty.org.
- And if you’re interested in how business can take action against gender-based violence, check out a recent article from KonaConnect that profiles the world’s first chatbot designed to empower domestic violence survivors and highlights opportunities for your business to get involved.
COLLABORATIONS
Over the last 15 years, we’ve refined a proven methodology for rapid collaboration on the questions that matter most to our supporters. Over the course of a few months we bring together the best minds from across our network to facilitate meaningful conversations, co-create solutions and drive practical action on shared challenges.
Would you like to get involved?
- Look out for email updates on our two upcoming Challenges: how business can deliver living wages, and how to put people at the centre of climate action. If you don’t already receive them, you can sign up for our newsletter here.
- Explore our Business & COVID-19 Response Centre. Last year, we applied our rapid collaboration expertise to the pressing challenge of how businesses can support the most vulnerable throughout the pandemic.
You can also find out more about how to partner effectively through our written content:
- In Collaborating Beyond COVID-19, Joseph F. Kolapudi, Project Director, ReachAcross, explores how the pandemic has shifted perspectives on international cooperation and how we collaborate on global challenges.
- In Five Principles for Powerful Partnerships, Ha Thi Quynh Nga, Strategic Partnerships Lead for CARE in Vietnam, shows how a collaboration is catalysing business growth for women entrepreneurs, and shares lessons on successful partnerships.
- And don’t miss our in-depth reports on effective partnership, including Building Transformational Partnerships, A Blueprint for Rapid Collaboration, Mining as a Partner in Building More Inclusive and Resilient Societies and Action Toolkit: Building and Mobilising National Coalitions.
COLLECTIVE INSIGHTS
Through our website, you can access over 4000 articles, podcasts, videos and reports. Download reports and action toolkits that distil learning from our Collaborations; and browse articles from over 100 world-class content partners and community members to stay ahead with the latest thinking.
Take a look at our reports and how-to videos, including our Business and Climate Justice Framework that explores what climate justice means in practice and the actions that business can take.
Learn about the work and personal journeys of our community members, through our Spotlight podcast series. The latest is an interview with Joseph Kolapudi, Project Director, Reach Across, a charity supporting refugees. Joseph talks about the impact of the pandemic on job opportunities for young people, and shares practical tips to get work experience, learn skills and build relationships with colleagues.
In the last week, we’ve published several thought-provoking articles by members of community:
- An article by BRAC highlights the need for community-based healthcare for COVID response in Bangladesh and beyond.
- An Innovative Use of Traditional Technology profiles the work of Farmers’ Voice Radio, an initiative from UK NGO the Lorna Young Foundation. Participatory radio programmes create space for smallholder farmers in Africa to raise issues that are important to them, share insights, and seek advice.
- Setting out a vision for the future of primary healthcare worker education, Jane Beston, Dr Mamsallah Faal-Omisore, and Dr Matt Harris, Primary Care International and Dr Niall Winters, University of Oxford, explain the value of multi-directional learning and why it must shape the healthcare services of the future.
Don’t forget there’s an open invitation to share your insights and inspiration with our community!
- Contact natasha([at])businessfightspoverty.org to share articles for publication on our website. Your article may even be selected for our quarterly magazine.
COMMUNICATIONS
Do you have something big to say? If you would like to build meaningful two-way engagement with peers in a global community, build trust with specific stakeholders or amplify your voice through joint advocacy, Business Fights Poverty can help. Using our platform, convening power and reach, we can help get your voice heard on the issues that matter to you.
- Our Founder and CEO, Zahid Torres-Rahman, recently moderated a live discussion between experts from the UNFPA, The World Bank, and Bayer Pharmaceuticals on world population and gender equality in the Post-COVID era. Find out the key messages in this article by Dr Ariane de Hoog, Lead Access to Medicine – Community, Bayer Pharmaceuticals.
- Earlier this year, we collaborated with Echoing Green, Barclays, Cargill and Camelback Ventures to amplify the voice of social entrepreneur leaders of colour in the US. Social entrepreneurs are behind some of the greatest solutions to the world’s biggest challenges, yet social entrepreneur leaders of colour in the U.S. are struggling to find sufficient investment to build businesses that serve their communities. Why? Download the report, Creating An Environment Where Social Impact Businesses Can Thrive, to find out.
Creating positive social impact through business requires a collaborative effort. Whether you work in the private sector, for a governmental organisation or NGO, collectively we can come together in fresh and creative ways to improve the lives, livelihoods and learning opportunities of the most vulnerable people and communities.
