Education is one of the few things that is acutely personal yet has a tendency to hover in a standardized space. Learning is so local, intimate even, but yet it's propped up by a cookie-cutter government-generated curriculum. And that's why innovation in the sphere of public education can be sluggish at times.
So big business is stepping in. Partnering up with universities and colleges to inform the curriculum, recruit for diversity and, in the process, refill the talent pool.
Corporations have realized there's an opportunity to step outside of offering standardized corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies and instead play an active role by engaging at a more localized level.
It's a solution-based approach and Ontario's electricity provider Hydro One is a prime example.
Hiring electricians maxed out in the 1970s and with no real opportunities, the curriculum became stale and cobwebbed while prospective engineers pursued more glamorous career paths. Now there's a whole generation of baby boomer electricians on the cusp of retirement.
"Sure, we could passively put some money out there for scholarships or put (endowed) chairs in the universities, which we've done in the past, but what we've seen is that those are not hugely successful," says Richard Pringle, manager, corporate social responsibility and community investment at Hydro One. "By engaging deeper partnerships with the colleges and universities – we can contribute to social change in a much more meaningful and impactful way."
Pringle is quick to credit his predecessor, Sheelagh Lawrence, with the CSR strides Hydro One has made. He's only been there for a few months, but his work in the space stretches back nearly two decades from working in corporate affairs at pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline to teaching at the
Carroll School of Business Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College.
In other words, he knows enough about the sphere to recognize innovation.
The partnership between
Hydro One and a consortium of colleges –
Mohawk in Hamilton,
Georgian in Barrie,
Northern in Timmins and
Algonquin in Ottawa – on the other hand, materialized in 2007.
With dated electrical engineering programs, enrollment was low and the hands-off support wasn't working. So they set to re-wiring the curriculum and making it more relevant to the technology dominated world. They also started to look into the dynamics of recruiting for diversity.
"If you look at other formerly male-dominated professions like medicine or business it was mostly men in there sprinkled with a few women," laments Pringle. "Now it's inverted… with the exception of engineering."
Less than 10 per cent of the electrical engineers in the province of Ontario are women.
First nations groups, Metis and Inuit are also underrepresented.
"There's a lot of advantages to having a more diversified dynamic," he says.
More recently, the electrical provider set up a consortium of universities – made up of Ryerson University in Toronto, the University of Ontario Institute of Technology in Oshawa, University of Waterloo and University of Western Ontario in London – to focus specifically on recruiting young women in engineering.
Nika Zolfaghari, engineering engagement and outreach liaison at Ryerson, pointed out that the partnership includes a $1.4 million donation from Hydro One over four years as well as shared resources.
"The idea is that every university is well known for something, so we pool resources and see if we can make a change," says Zofaghari. Ryerson used their communication expertise to build a hub to rebrand "women in engineering" and spark interest in the discipline.
The consortium ran a
Feats of Engineering program last May where young girls grade 7 to 10 were invited to meet engineers and go behind the scenes at partners' facilities including Hydro One, Bombardier, Metrolinx and Google.
"What we're trying to do is excite them from a younger age so that they enroll in those grade eleven and twelve physics classes in order to keep the option of engineering open to them," she says.
Another facet of the partnership was working with a youth think tank (YTT) of high school girls to identify the sort of branding that would appeal to them.
Kaylie Lau, a Grade 11 student from Bishop's Academy in Toronto, participated in the YTT and helped design
WEMADEIT, an online hub for young female engineers.
"I think that it can be really intimidating for girls to enter schools and careers dominated by mostly males," she says. "WEMADEIT garners more interest among girls who are contemplating a career in engineering and it helps solve this problem."
The fact that these community tactics will ultimately pay dividends isn't lost on Pringle, but good business is still business.
"We're not the only ones benefitting from it – the universities and colleges benefit from it, the students do and obviously we're creating a large pool of candidates for Hydro One," he says. "But the other companies looking to hire science, technology and mathematical graduates will benefit from it as well."
In a sense it's a more people-focused way of doing business. It also suggests corporations may not be opposed to working with competitors in the name of a greater good – that people, planet, profit approach that rolls of the tongue so nicely.
It also suggests the overarching ethics of CSR may be growing out of those awkward, angst-driven teenaged years and into a functioning adult phase where CSR is not a marketing proposition, it's a value-adding element.
"For a lot of companies working on local solutions is new," says Pringle. "But we see this as part of the broader responsibility."
Photos from top left to bottom right: Nika Zolfaghari, from Ryerson; Humairaa Patel from WEMADEIT; Lucy Davidson, Humairaa Patel & Katryna Gontar; Urooj Siddiqui & Humairaa Patel. Photos by: Voula Monoholias.
Spotlight: Impact Investing – At the nexus of charity and CSR
The nature of Corporate Social Responsibility is undoubtedly changing, but that latter part—the responsibility aspect—has been weighing on RBC's mind. Sure there are plenty of ways to engage the community surrounding sustainability, as the royal blue-toned bank does via its
Blue Water conservation project, but it's a different conversation the bank is looking to have. It's looking to connect with its business clients and, further to that, the legions of could-bes and would-bes out there that make up the backbone of Canadian innovation.
Enter the $20 million pool of capital affectionately known as the
RBC Generator Fund, a sturdy investment the bank plans to slowly feed into socially-focused entrepreneurs in Canada's supernova-ing startup ecosystem. It's impact investing—otherwise known as putting your money where your values are.
Not only is it in line with the bank's CSR strategy, impact investing goes beyond charity, putting money back in the pockets of good-hearted investors.
"There's a place for philanthropy, but investments in social good, although they're higher risk than a traditional investment, can have a positive social impact but also get a return with interest," says Sandra Odendahl, the bank's director of corporate sustainability who spearheads the RBC Social Finance Initiative umbrella that the Generator Fund rests under. "Then you can reinvest – it's a cycle."
To kick off the foray, RBC injected $250,000 in
Nudge Rewards (formerly Greengage)—a Toronto-based startup creating a mobile app that helps corporations engage with their employees surrounding CSR initiatives by tracking participation and getting feedback.
"It's kind of funny to think of ourselves almost as one of their CSR initiatives," says Lindsey Goodchild, founder of the app, which lets corporations send reminders such as "turn off the power bar" or notifications about upcoming community volunteering opportunities to employees, then rewards these employees for participating. How these rewards look varies from company to company. For instance, engaged employees at Tangerine—one of Nudge's stable of clients that also includes heavy hitters such as Air Canada and Canadian Tire—can cash in reward points for $500 towards an RSP.
Nudge offers a simple solution in a space where only 14 per cent of employees at large corporations were actively engaged in CSR programs.
"The app experience is tailored to the individual based on their interests, personal CSR-related goals and geography to help create relevant and meaningful opportunities for the individual," says Goodchild. In exchange, corporations can track employee engagement and adjust initiatives around the gathered metrics.
Nudge is one of two companies in the RBC Generator portfolio, which also includes three independent social investment funds, says Odendahl.
But RBC is not the only one. Big business in general is starting to look towards incubators—like Toronto-based
MaRS Discovery District's clean tech fund or Ryerson University's
Digital Media Zone accelerator—in search of the next socialpreneur superstar.
"One of the additional benefits is the public value generated by engaging in this kind of investing," says Adam Spence, associate director at the MaRS Centre for Impact Investing and founder of the
SVX, which connects social investors with startups. "Then there's the interest from a talent space. Investors want to be involved with these kinds of companies."
He points to a massive business like Markham-headquartered
Saint Elizabeth, a health organization that provides home care and staffing relief. They've got a staff size of around 7,000 and a sophisticated impact investing strategy. They're supporting startups like Vancouver-based
Tyze, a social network that lets family members communicate and schedule appointments for someone receiving health care.
"It meets Saint Elizabeth's own corporate interest and mission in health and wellness," says Spence. "They're a really neat case example of a large corporation that is now super involved and starting to engage in this kind of work, using their own funds."
Investing in socially minded businesses as both a CSR strategy and way to get a return on investments is a valuable tool to add to the growing CSR toolbox for companies.
"A good CSR strategy would never include only giving money to charity," adds Odendahl.
Photo: Lindsey Goodchild, Co-founder and CEO, and Dessy Daskalov, CTO and Co-Founder of Nudge Rewards. Photo by: Elise Darmanin
This special report is sponsored by Deloitte.