What’s your corporate responsibility, post-COVID? What we’re doing to improve our local communities with technology
COVID-19 has created a very unexpected disruption to life. As we continue to endure its effects on people and the economy for over half a year, it’s important to look back at how things were handled in the beginning, and the support that corporations gave during these crucial times.
Many organizations from around the world donated money and resources during the onset of the crisis, and are still continuing to do so today—but many surely weren’t prepared to do so, leading to delays of life-saving resources. With the influence that corporations have over the economy and society, moving forward, it’s important to have a corporate responsibility program (CSR) in place for unexpected crises, to have a more positive impact on people.
What could such a program look like, or how could it be built? By harnessing the power of today’s available predictive and prescriptive analytics tools, measurement is one of the most important aspects of a successful corporate responsibility program. Perhaps even assigning a score, like Klout did for social media back in the mid 2010’s—could give your organization an idea of where it stands today, and how it could improve to meet the global corporate responsibility standards of other organizations. A database or platform containing participating CSR companies could even match companies who have similar priorities or areas of expertise, bringing them together for the greater good.
At the end of the day—or should I say, the start, all of this is closely related to data and how it’s managed. Your organization must first have a good grasp of the type of data it has collected, and where it’s stored to make it easily accessible to analytics tools, while still prioritizing security and making sure that only the appropriate people have access to the data. Data is the foundation to any corporate responsibility program.
At Solix, one of our missions is to help companies along their AI journey to better understand their data. The Solix Common Data Platform (CDP) is a fully end-to-end big data application framework that manages data from ingestion to analysis, using modern technologies including data lake, Hadoop, and the cloud. As part of our own corporate responsibility program, we set out to improve our local communities by leveraging the Solix CDP as a foundation for TALGiving: A new type of giving platform and digital marketplace that matches donors with the needy and underprivileged, available as an app for mobile iOS and Android devices.
TALGiving brings together corporate donors, individual donors, non-profits, individual donees, and High School students to provide local resources to people in need—whether it be monetary or medical assistance, clothing, food, shelter, and more—using the Solix CDP as a framework to power its AI and blockchain features. Created by a non-profit organization, the Touch-A-Life Foundation, TALGiving has absolutely zero fees involved (with the exception of credit card processing fees), and 100% of proceeds go towards specific causes. TALGiving is not just a giving platform, it also features inspirational content in the form of podcasts, videos, and music. Additionally, a volunteer program called TALScouts gives students an opportunity to be involved in growing and working on the TALGiving app to make a difference in their local communities, and providing them with important leadership, technical, entrepreneurship, and marketing skills.
We’re excited to be working with the TALGiving team, to make it easier for the needy to receive the resources they need during difficult times like COVID. To my fellow customers, partners, and readers, I invite you and your colleagues to give TALGiving a try, by visiting and signing up at talgiving.org. As always, we appreciate your feedback—and if you’re interested in being involved in the program by lending your expertise or technology, do not hesitate to reach out.
