Corporate Karma: How business can move forward by giving back

Connecting corporations with social responsibility

Peggie Pelosi stumbled into her life purpose after turning 50. Having spent her entire – successful – career working because she needed to make a living, she found her true calling in her third age.

Peggie shows corporate leaders how to develop strong, sustainable connections between their company and relevant causes. In the process, she transforms entire corporate cultures to create truly inspirational places to work. Peggie explained to Tempo Toronto how this came to be.

“I was hired by a public company in 2000 to turn it around. Sales had been flat for a few years, and I had the role of inspiring the sales force to grow the business. I hadn’t heard of Corporate Social Responsibility at that time, but I already had an intrinsic sense that corporations needed to give back. Sure, the company had written cheques to charities, but they didn’t remember anything about the causes they were supporting.”

Her action was to find a charity that would meet a need for engagement, and to roll out an optional program in which employees could participate. It was a children’s hunger fund.

“The company made pharmaceutical grade nutritional supplements, and there is a huge need in the world for proper nourishment. So, we ‘adopted’ orphanages,” said Peggie. “I took the CEO, board members and employees to San Salvador to get them engaged with the children. Once we had formed this partnership with orphanages, the whole company became enthused. We raised $120,000 in the first year.”

Fast forwarding three years, sales more than doubled, and share value went up by more than 3000 per cent (yes, three thousand). Why?

Peggie knew. “The company looked exactly the same from the outside. But through an internal lens you saw the complete culture shift that hat happened. The company became an inspiring place to work, and we attracted and retained the best people. That has a huge impact on the bottom line.”

This was Peggie’s “aha” moment. She realized that most people weren’t satisfied with going to work just to make a living. She know that there was a missed opportunity for businesses, and for her to help businesses figure out how to do this – how to develop a strategy to breathe giving back into their culture. Orenda Connections www.orendaconnections.com was born. She published her book, Corporate Karma: How businesses can move forward by giving back, in 2006.

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“It’s compelling for me to create these opportunities for people to come to work for more than just earning enough to pay the bills,” said Peggie. “We’re all hardwired to give. People like to reach deep and want to help, but when the messaging fades and there’s no feedback, or if you just write a cheque without getting involved, it’s easy to go back to day to day living. When you give businesses the opportunity to truly connect and make a difference, it trips a wire. It’s transformational.”

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Peggie took her five sons with her to visit an orphanage in Uganda, and spent three weeks in Gaba, a small fishing village. While they all helped to build an orphanage home, she watched her children’s lives transform before her eyes. On their return to Toronto, her two youngest graduated from business school and set to work helping Peggie spread her message.

Now, Orenda Connections works with businesses to show how to create partnerships between companies and their corporate social responsibility. The recent Roots and Shoots program, a co-development between Roots Canada and Jane Goodall, instigated by Peggie, is one example. Roots, already a philanthropic organization about 2000 strong, has a history of giving away a lot but had never engaged its employees. Under Peggie’s guidance, the recently launched “Roots Cares” engages each employee and reaches out to youth in their local communities to get them involved in community environmental activity, which is naturally close to Jane Goodall’s heart.

October 27 sees her Toronto conference “In Good Company” at the Berkeley Church, on Queen Street East, bringing together non-profits and corporate executives to dialogue about the importance of best practices around corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Back to Peggie, who had observed many people seemingly knowing exactly what they were here to do, but hadn’t yet visualized her own life purpose. It took her a half century to get there, but she now knows that Orenda Connections allows her to combine all the skills she has and apply them in a way that has real meaning both for her and for the people with whom she works.

“It gives me purpose. The return on the emotional investment is enormous.”

Tina Rogers