Catch up and Corporate Social Responsibility August 13, 2010

Hi Kellie (and readers of my various “open letters”).

It's good hear from you. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your e-mail and blogs during your travels in Africa and Vietnam. What an amazing time you and Michael have had since you and I were sitting chatting on my balcony. It feels rights to say “Welcome back”–even though you're now in California and I'm still in the UK.

I'm interested that you are interested in Corporate Social Responsibility. I think your mixed feelings about CSR (and the company motivation and the genuine benefits) mirror my own mixed feelings about people in the “developed world” and interventions in Africa. See highlighted text below
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We see lots of projects and interventions where people in “the developed world” are doing something “in Africa”. Often they seem poorly rooted in reality, demonstrating a top-down approach inherited from structures that were put in place before the Internet existed. Cynicism suggests that some vested interests are happy with the status quo and have no desire to change. Optimism suggests that many people would adopt better ways if only they could find them. By setting up Dadamac (and its various structures) we offer people the opportunity to share our ways of doing things (in theory or in practice). On a theoretical level we can share the lessons that we have learned, and explore how those lessons apply in other situations. On a practical level we can work with people to implement projects.  We offer vision, or practical support, to help people to find and take the better ways they are seeking, in whatever organisational culture suits them best.
(taken from a-p2p-introduction-to-dadamac-and-its-motivation)
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My thinking on CSR has been influenced by Business Fights Poverty meetings (where, to oversimplify greatly, it seems that CSR is often becoming more a part of the core business strategy than a separate add-on). I'd be very interested to know how you and Michael see things–CSR, life in California, the universe and everything.

Let's do some proper catching up with each other, and see where our overlapping interests lie now. Your experience in Africa plus Dadamac's roots in Nigeria equals some interesting possibilities.

Pamela