[TechSoup/Stock] Business Objects: Crystal Reports

Wanted to send along the 'heads up' on the availability of Crystal Reports, a Business Objects application, for nonprofits and currently available via CompuMentor's TechSoup programme.

Crystal Reports is a report-sharing service allowing organizations to instantly share crucial information via the Web. Organizations can make their reports
available for up to 10 people to view on the Web from anywhere in the world, whether or not they have Crystal Reports installed on their computers.

Information captured using Crystal Reports can also be shared in PDF, Excel, and Word formats.

This product is available at TechSoup Stock for an admin fee of US$85 (compared to a retail value of US$3,600), thanks to a generous donation from Business Objects.

Learn more and place a product donation request at TechSoup.

Learn about all donated products from Business Objects.

Ask your questions about Crystal Reports in this forum.

Business Objects is a Vancouver based company. Maybe Pat Bjerrisgaard, Senior Director, WW Community at Business Objects, or Steve Williams, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Business Objects OnDemand, will stop in and expand on why nonprofits would use Crystal Reports.
---------------------

Interested in learning more about social enterprise? Take a browse through the Vancouver Social Enterprise Book Store (Vancouver | United Kingdom | United States) and see what other social entrepreneurs recommend reading.

Tags for information about: for:vsef, Social Economy, Nonprofit, TechSoup

--------------------

VanCity and MEC Honoured for Social Reporting

Kudos to both VanCity and MEC for being recognised in the sixth annual Ceres-Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) Sustainability Reporting Awards. The Ceres-ACCA awards recognize and encourage exemplary reporting on sustainability issues by corporations and other organizations across the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

It's a laudable accomplishment in a rapidly congested field.

Of the 102 nominees, winners were selected by a panel of 14 judges who focused on the reports' completeness, credibility and effectiveness of communication.

Here's what was said:

Vancity Group, Vancouver, British Columbia: Vancity's winning 2004-2005 Accountability Report is an example of consolidated sustainability reporting, combining Vancity and Citizens Bank's sustainability reports into one. The report sets future targets and action plans and holds a member of Vancity's executive team accountable for each target. The report also provides an update on 44 targets and action plans set in 2004-2005.

For advice in preparing its report, Vancity invited 26 community leaders and members from across Canada to comment on the report's credibility, completeness, and responsiveness. Vancity also worked with stakeholders to set aggressive targets, invited external auditors to check how the organization is doing against these targets, report back the results - both good and bad, and verify that the report was prepared in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative.

Mountain Equipment Co-op, Vancouver, British Columbia: Mountain Equipment Co-op's inaugural Accountability Report has helped the co-operative develop a reporting system and the capacity to measure and understand its performance. The report conveys the co-operative's commitment to transparency through full disclosure of non-compliance in its supply chain and of the material issues affecting the co-operative. The report also included the results of a series of employee engagement surveys and discusses employee satisfaction, turnover rates, and fair compensation.

As soon as the report on the judges is available, it'll be added to this post.

---------------------

Tags for information about: for:vsef, CSR, VanCity, MEC

--------------------

Conflict Timber?

Our economy relies heavily on extraction industries. So questions come up when reading "Selling off the rainforest - a modern-day scandal", at the Guardian website.

The article begins:

Vast tracts of the world's second-largest rainforest have been obtained by a small group of European and American industrial logging companies in return for minimal taxes and gifts of salt, sugar and tools, a two-year investigation will disclose today.

Here are some other resources:

• Conflict Timber: Dimensions of the Problem in Asia and Africa
• Forest Reform in the DRC
• Good Wood Guide

Here's how Greenpeace is blogging the issue.

Oh ... the picture is of merchandise Greenpeace is selling to raise awareness of their campaign addressing Kimberly-Clark’s ongoing destruction of Canada’s magnificent Boreal Forest.
---------------------

Tags for information about: for:vsef, Social Economy, Nonprofit

--------------------

The Core Gore

Earlier we mentioned Dave Mowat's commitment to spreading the message of The Climate Project.

Tonight was the night and the Ridge in Kitsilano was the place. Were you there?
It's a few hours after the event and confusion rules over the jotted notes, recollections.

Forgive the random blurtings.

-------------
Once past a phalanx of VanCity board-member-wannabes pressing pamphlets and urging support the "scene" was serene. A mild surprise given the e-mail invitation noted "capacity crowd anticipated". My guess, the Ridge was half capacity. I could be wrong. I was put off by the four complete rows reserved for VanCity that seemed sparsely populated. I never checked for lurkers in the balcony.

-------------
The white letters on the black screen at the front of the theatre ask me ...

"Can you handle the truth?"

"What can you do?"

The questions are too hard. I scan the gathering crowd wondering how many will litter the floor with discarded VanCity Board election material. I don't need to wonder long.

-------------
The couple next to me drove separately. One from home. The other from work. Guessing they haven't looked at the adapted one tonne challenge handed to them as they walked into the theatre.

-------------
It feels like we're starting late.

-------------
I think I heard Dave say, "Almost everything good tracks back to our use of fossil fuel". I'm wondering how Gordon Gekko would deliver "The Core Gore".

-------------
The talk swings between "we", "you", "We", "Us", "global", "national" ... getting dizzy.

-------------
Nice to know the "enviro foot print" has a local connection. Nicer to mention Bill Rees. Nicer still to let folks know he and John Helliwell will present "Saving the planet and feeling good about it".

-------------
Nice graphic of Florida coastline changed by 6m rise in tide levels. [Note to self: suggest Dave considers Tufte on Visual Explanations.]

-------------
A couple of nice VanCity newsy bits:

A soft launch of a Climate Change Mortgage

Here's Dave telling you more:

VanCity working with Pattison Group to use White-LEDs instead of using energy eating neon.

Wondered if they'd given any thought to working with the Light Up the World Foundation - LUTW. Maybe LUTW will benefit from the Climate Fund created by the climate mortgage.

-------------

Time to take action:

1. Reduce home temperature by 5 degrees - when not at home.

2. Use low-flow showerheads.

3. Turn hot water temperature down to 49 degrees.

Will that mess with the warranty?

4. Wash clothes in cold water.

5. Replace light bulbs.

See LUTW above

6. Weatherstrip windows and doors.

7. Upgrade my home's insulation.

Audience member points out how landlord/strata might need to be consulted

8. Use "Green Power".

Ummm. Described as paying extra so BC Hydro can go green. Think Dave needs to chat with Bob Elton.

9. Maintain my vehicle regularly.

These action steps were suggested by the good folks at the Pembina Institute. Right?

10. Don't idle my vehicle.

Pembina was founded in Drayton Valley, Alberta. Right?

11. Use ethanol blended gas.

Much oil pumping/farming happening in the Drayton Valley?

12. Reduce my cruise speed.

13. Take public transit to work.

Might have been nice to plug eco-density

14. Replace my car with one that is more fuel efficient

Is this still "The Core Gore"?

15. Take one less flight

Using the handy-dandy Pembina/VanCity Take-Eco-Action meter each attendee calculated their opportunity to reduce GHG.

Apparently if we all did these things we'd counter the emissions of 66 cars. Which is about half the number of cars parked at the theatre. [How long are we countering these emissions for?]

We done good!

Vancouver Eco-density takes on a new meaning.

---------
BTW - We're including Livestock’s long shadow in next months newsletter.

---------------------

Tags for information about: for:vsef, Social Economy, Climate, VanCity

--------------------

[Conference] Social Enterprise Conference 2007 -Harvard Business School

On Wednesday the second Canadian Conference on Social Enterprise will draw to a close. So far it's been ... nice.

You might be able to listen here.

But on the heels of Davos ...

Let's look forward to March 4, and the Social Enterprise Conference at Harvard.

The Conference speakers include:

Cheryl Dorsey - President, Echoing Green

An accomplished social entrepreneur with expertise in health care, labor issues and public policy, Cheryl Dorsey was named President of Echoing Green in May 2002. She is the first Echoing Green Fellow to lead the social venture fund, which has awarded nearly $25 million in start-up capital to over 400 social entrepreneurs worldwide since 1987.

Dr. Dorsey served as a White House Fellow from 1997-1998, serving as Special Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Labor, advising the Clinton Administration on health care and other issues. She was later named Special Assistant to the Director of the Women's Bureau of the U.S. Labor Department. Most recently,Dr. Dorsey served as the first Director of Public Health Initiatives at Danya International, Inc., where she developed products and services aimed at substance abuse treatment and prevention, child and family services, minority health and community outreach.

Dr. Dorsey has received numerous awards and honors for her commitment to public service, including the Pfizer Roerig History of Medicine Award, the Robert Kennedy Distinguished Public Service Award and the Manuel C. Carballo Memorial Prize. She currently serves as a board member of CORO, a leadership development organization.

Dr. Dorsey holds a B.A. in History and Science from Harvard-Radcliffe Colleges, an M.D. from the Harvard Medical School and an M.P.P. from the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Victoria Hale - Founder and CEO, Institute for One World Health

Dr. Hale established her expertise in all stages of biopharmaceutical drug development at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Center for Drug Evaluation and Research; and at Genentech, Inc., the world's first biotechnology company. She presently maintains an Adjunct Associate Professorship in Biopharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), is an Advisor to the World Health Organization (WHO) for building ethical review capacity in the developing world, and has served as an expert reviewer to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on the topic of biodiversity. In 2004, Dr. Hale and OneWorld Health were included in the Scientific American 50, the magazine’s annual list recognizing outstanding acts of leadership in science and technology. Dr. Hale’s recent honors include being named Executive of the Year by Esquire Magazine (2005), receiving The Economist Innovation Award for Social and Economic Innovation (2005), as well as the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship from the Skoll Foundation (2005), being selected as a Fellow by Ashoka, Innovators for the Public - a global organization that identifies and invests in leading social entrepreneurs (2006), and being named one of the “Most Outstanding Social Entrepreneurs” by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship in Switzerland (2004).

Jay Coen Gilbert - Acting Co-Chair, Investors Circle, AND1, B-Lab/B Holdings

Despite having no game, Jay Coen Gilbert co-founded and sold AND 1, a $250M basketball footwear and apparel company based outside Philadelphia. Jay is Acting Chairman of Investor’s Circle, a national network dedicated to “Patient Capital for a Sustainable Future.” Since 1992, Investors’ Circle members have invested over $107 million in 171 deals, in such areas as environment, healthcare, education, women-led companies and community development.

Jay is currently co-creating two related organizations: B Lab and B Holdings. B Lab is a non-profit organization whose mission is to build the For-Benefit sector. The For-Benefit sector is a new sector of the economy, sitting between the for-profit and non-profit sectors, which harnesses the power of private enterprise to create public benefit. The For-Benefit sector is comprised of a new type of corporation -- the B corporation – which is purpose-driven and creates benefit for all stakeholders, not just shareholders. B Holdings is the Berkshire Hathaway for purpose-driven investors, a For-Benefit holding company focused on consumer products, financial services, and media.

Jay is a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute and a Board member of the Philadelphia chapters of KIPP, a national public charter middle school, City Year, a leading Americorps youth service program, and Monteverde Friends, U.S.

Bill Shore - Founder and Executive Director, Share Our Strength

Bill Shore is the founder and executive director of Share Our Strength, the nation's leading organization working to end childhood hunger in the United States. Shore is also the chairman of Community Wealth Ventures, Inc., a for-profit subsidiary of Share Our Strength, that provides consulting services.

Shore founded Share Our Strength in 1984 in response to the Ethiopian famine and subsequently renewed concern about hunger in the United States. Since its founding, Share Our Strength has raised more than $200 million to support more than 1,000 anti-hunger, anti-poverty groups worldwide. Today, its priority is to end childhood hunger in America ensuring that the nearly 14 million American children facing hunger have access to the nutritious food they need to learn, grow and thrive.

A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Shore earned his B.A. at the University of Pennsylvania and his law degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He currently serves on the board of directors of The Timberland Company, City Year, College Summit, and Venture Philanthropy Partners. In October 2005, US News & World Report selected Shore as one of America's Best Leaders, an accomplished group selected by an independent committee of judges assembled by the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

And there are panels ... lots of panels ..

Measuring Value in Cross-Sector Partnerships – Perception vs. Reality

Corporations have traditionally supported public or nonprofit activities either through direct giving (philanthropy) or joint marketing programs (sponsorships). These investments are usually small relative to the overall corporate budget and they are primarily designed to increase the general reputation of the company. However, using new models of CSR leading companies have begun to look more carefully at the specific benefits of social impact investments that eventually accrue to the corporate bottom line. The trend has been for managers of private firms and nonprofit organizations to “walk in the other person’s shoes” and demonstrate the value they provide to corporate profits and social welfare respectively. But have cross-sector partnerships been oversold as “win-win” situations for the firm and society?

Making People Care: Successes and Challenges in Engaging Public Support for Social Enterprise and Global Development

The panel will explore some of the creative ways organizations are engaging the North American public -- through outreach, awareness campaigns, and opportunities for action -- in support of social enterprise and/or anti-poverty efforts in the developing world. Panelists will discuss successful approaches as well as enduring challenges in moving people from caring to long term, effective engagement to alleviate poverty.

The Emerging Role of Private Capital in Economic Development

Access to capital is core to any countries recipe for economic development. Traditionally, this role has been filled by NGO’s such as the IMF and World Bank. This is now changing. Private capital is playing an increasingly critical role in economic development. Developing economies, in particular India and China, are receiving increased interest from Western Banks, private equity and venture capital firms. This interest is just beginning and will likely grow unabated. While the West’s financially deep pockets are of great importance, they also raise fundamental questions.

Emerging Career Paths in Social Enterprises

Social enterprises are now attracting top talent. How is the infusion of top MBA's unfolding in these social enterprises? What are the emerging career paths? This panel looks at economic and international development jobs in the social enterprise space.

Public-Private Partnerships in Urban Development

The public-private partnership has been seen most often in the urban development sphere where federal, state, and local agencies partner with private contractors in search of a win-win situation. This panel takes a close look at both the performance of such partnerships and the future for this form of partnership.

The Arts as a Tool for Social Change

This panel will address how the arts succeed in engaging the community and the powerful role of the arts in social and economic development. In light of recent press surrounding the issue of the changing nature of philanthropy, this panel will also seek to address supporting and funding the arts in the context of other philanthropic causes. Social entrepreneurs from different artistic mediums will discuss the ways in which the arts can serve as a tool for empowerment, education and community engagement.

Entrepreneurship for Sustainable Agriculture

Agriculture faces four challenges in becoming sustainable. First, hunger: today more than 850 million people lack sufficient food for an active and healthy life. How will we become able to feed them? Second, trade: negotiations have been suspended primarily because of disagreements on agricultural protections. How do we reach a consensus acceptable by all parties? Third, the environment: agriculture has a tremendous impact on the two most pressing environmental issues: global warming and access to water. How can agriculture minimize its environmental impact? And fourth, health: from obesity issues to supply chain security, the impact of agriculture on health has become a major issue in the public debate. How can our food become more healthy?

Foundations

What does “social entrepreneurship” mean to leading foundations in the U.S.? Is it a meaningful concept or an ephemeral buzz-word with more hype than substance? Are these foundations seeking to fund social entrepreneurs, and, if so, what do they use to identify grant recipients? Senior representative from three of the largest tech-funded foundations in the U.S. will debate and discuss their views. If you are or aspire to a grant-maker or grantee, this is a panel not to be missed.

Global Health

Over the past decade, product development public-private partnerships have formed to develop safe, effective, and accessible interventions to combat the spread of infectious disease. By combining non-profit commitment to international public goods for health with private-sector business models and product development capabilities, these partnerships bridge public- and private-sector interests with a view toward resolving the barriers to industry involvement in the development these products. This panel will examine the relationship between the private, public, and non-profit sectors in developing and delivering such pharmaceutical interventions.

Microfinance

The panel seeks to push the limit on microcredit models, expanding the conversation from traditional projects to ones that may include things like microinsurance or the bundling of microcredit with the delivery of social services. How can microenterprise effectively expand the level and quality of its services in ways that more effectively achieve goals of poverty alleviation? How far can we push traditional models without losing focus? Does the role of profit in microenterprise advance or hinder the sector’s collective goals of poverty alleviation?

Social Venture Capital

Venture philanthropy and social venture capital operate between ‘traditional’ models of philanthropy and for-profit investment funds. What has been their impact so far, especially in developing countries? What are the pros and cons of loans versus grants? Can these models make a sustainable impact on global poverty?

Emergency Response

Field practitioners will debate the positive and negative implications of the new and emerging mechanism of cash distributions. While the western world consistently uses cash distributions (e.g. FEMA and Red Cross credit cards to those affected by Katrina), there is a continued reluctance and lack of trust for using similar type of mechanisms for emergency responses in developing contexts. Cash distributions have proven to be extremely effective in both conflict (e.g. the West Bank) and natural disaster (e.g. tsunami in Indonesia and Sri Lanka) responses by decreasing logistics and administrative costs, speeding response times and increasing respect for the beneficiaries. Representatives from the traditional models of emergency response (e.g. UN) and pioneers of the cash distribution model will discuss their viewpoints.

Entrepreneurship in Experiential Education

Experiential education is a “hot topic” in education reform and draws proponents and critics throughout the profession. Social Enterprise adds another perspective in bringing “rule breakers” (instead of “rule takers”) to education who seek reform outside the constraints of the establishment. Can these two perspectives coexist?

Bottom Up or Top Down: Does It Matter Where and How a Social Enterprise Begins?

This is a topic that should be of interest to all those interested in social entrepreneurship, new or practiced. It strikes at the very heart of why the social entrepreneurship model began. Are we in danger of losing the raison d’etre of the movement, or merely exploring new ways to expand its possibilities? Should every partnership be explored? Is the purpose of social entrepreneurship charity or empowerment?

Climate Change and the Media

With the increasing power and global reach of both new and old media, what has been the impact of the media in covering the nexus between climate change and environmentally damaging business practices? This panel examines areas where the media has provided pivotal editorial coverage and has reported on green initiatives and practices.

Can the Success of the For-profit Business Incubator be Replicated in the Social Sector?

In most communities today, social enterprises are still just happening by chance. The for-profit sector has shown that business incubators can rapidly increase the number of successful new businesses being created. Universities such as Stanford, Harvard, and others have introduced SE Incubation Labs in their teaching programs. How do we get these models into communities where people live and feel the social needs every day?

Socially Responsible Investing

What is socially responsible investing (SRI) and what are the pros and cons of common SRI strategies such as screening, shareholder advocacy, and community involvement? As the SRI field matures, what new products are in the SRI pipeline and how can the field be taken more seriously by the rest of the investment community?

Interested? Here's a summary of the 2006 conference.
---------------------

Tags for information about: for:vsef, Social Enterprise, CSR, Harvard

--------------------

Davos | Peter Munk on "Rogue NGOs"

Davos is a "What's said here. Stays here." kind of place. This year the attendees are highly accessible and willing to share. We like that.

So when FT.com aired a video of Peter Munk, Barrick Gold chairman, sharing his concerns about "rogue NGOs" ...

FT.com has been good enough to provide a transcript ...

Peter Munk, chairman and founder of Barrick Gold, speaks to James Montgomery, editor of FT.com at Davos 2007 on January 25 2007

James Montgomery: Peter Munk, chairman and founder of Barrick Gold, thank you very much for talking to the Financial Times. You’ve been speaking at Davos this week about the problems you believe are caused by what you describe as rogue NGOs. What is a rogue NGO?

Peter Munk: NGOs came on the scene 20, 25 years ago and they were enormously beneficial and a major influence on improving global standards, whether it’s Amnesty International and Human Rights, whether it’s Sierra Club in terms of pollution, we all know that they made a major impact on world opinion and a major impact on the way we all operate today, particularly in the extracting industries.

Unfortunately, because of the high quality of these NGOs, there was no need and there was no intent by any governments to try to control them. They controlled businesses, they controlled corporations, they certainly controlled governments, so all the participants in the debate or dialogue who cannot develop a mine, are well known, but suddenly in the last decade and increasingly over the last few years, NGOs have emerged who people have not heard of before, who come from obscure, non-transparent background, who adhere to no standards, and, worst of all, who have no accountability, and the claims they make are sometimes so wild and so untrue and so blatantly untrue, damaging not just potential projects but corporations and individuals against which there is no defence, that the damage they cause is going to be incalculable, particularly now that we are experiencing a global boom in commodities. Ten years ago or 15 years ago when we had the bottom of the cycle, this would not have mattered because really there was neither the capital nor the need to develop a large number of new mines of base metals, energy, whatever. Today the picture has totally changed. They’ve gone through an unprecedented period, probably never before experienced, right across the board from wheat to platinum where every material, every raw material, has doubled and trebled in price because the demand is so powerful, so strong, that this of course in turn means that every miner and every producer maximises their production which means they exhaust existing mining capacities quicker, which imposes a new demand on putting new mines on stream and this is where the NGOs, these rogue NGOs, come in because they stop the ability of having these new mines evolve.

JM: And what harm do you believe rogue NGOs are doing as you see it?

PM: Well, number one, from a global point of view and from an overall point of view, the main damage, of course, is done to the world at large where you’re forcing people, and I mean people right across the globe from the Chinese worker who’s moved up from his generation long village into finally in a position where he can afford a bicycle or running water, to the luxury guy who’s riding a TJV train in France, every one of us. A large amount of money is being paid for those commodities than it would need to be without this unnecessary totally uncalled for and totally unjustifiable burden. So they’re making the commodity boom become so exaggerated that imposes a tax on global society and if it extends without control the behaviour of these NGOs further and they are able to thwart the development of major deposits, then the demand which will remain constant anyway, will drive prices up to unsustainable levels. So that’s damage number one.

Damage number two is that the communities where these mind deposits are, whether it’s in Europe, whether it’s in Latin America, whether it’s in Asia, or Africa, Africa, of course, is a whole case because of political issues, these mining communities mostly depend entirely on the economic benefits the mining companies would create by making a massive major investment which in today’s world a new mine requires. And that ranges from restaurants to hotels, from education to health, from infrastructure to super-structure. Then the employment issue. A major mine will employ people for two decades, from the lowest, unqualified labour to the foreman and to the manager 75 to 80% on these mines the employees are locals. Now, these locals have no chance of getting the kind of incomes and the kind of wage benefits that they could get from global mining companies. In many cases they go back to the state of absolute poverty because in many of these regions there is no other employment opportunity, so that’s the second major damage they cause.

And thirdly, they are putting a huge damper on the global prospecting community which is an integral part of the process to come up with mines. We always had prospectors who had the genius, who had the geological competence, and some of them were failures, most of them were failures, but some of them were such brilliant success stories that they were responsible for creating billion dollars worth of boom resource development to the benefit of the country, the community, the corporations, the shareholders, and reduced the price of the commodities by making a commodity available cheaply. And that activity is now cut in half because of this NGO rogue behaviour.

[...]

Given Mr. Munk's comments ... you might also be interested in Barrick's CSR reporting. Here's the link.
---------------------

Tags for information about: for:vsef, CSR, NGO, Davos

--------------------