Final month, Cisco introduced we exceeded our ten-year purpose to positively impression one billion lives – multiple yr early. The 1.1 billion lives we’ve modified for the higher symbolize roughly one-eighth of the world’s inhabitants.
The announcement was simply step one in our dedication to share the tales inside our journey to at least one billion lives, and to share our method and learnings to empower organizations of any dimension in driving actual change and lasting social impression in communities all over the world.
See how we met our One Billion Lives purpose video (1:24)
Cisco Govt Vice President and Chief Individuals, Coverage, and Goal Officer Fran Katsoudas illuminates this guideline in Cisco’s FY23 Goal Report. “Once we outlined our Goal, to Energy an Inclusive Future for All, we operationalized the work of our groups to co-innovate with companions leveraging connectivity; handle the digital abilities hole; drive sustainability, inclusivity, and social justice; and help new concepts with partnerships and impression grants.”
To attain our purpose to positively impression one billion lives, Cisco solid over 100 partnerships and invested in tons of of initiatives in almost 200 international locations, in each area of the world. We put folks on the heart of our work and centered on constructive impression within the areas of disaster response, studying and digital abilities, and financial empowerment.
We additionally created what we name “the Blueprint for One Billion” to align our partnerships and our initiatives with the guiding ideas that intersect our enterprise, know-how, and innovation along with our Goal, and permit us to focus the place we may have the deepest impression.
We imagine that our guiding ideas may be utilized to organizations of any dimension to drive elevated and lasting social impression.
The Blueprint for One Billion: Aligning function and partnership to drive impression
Begin with “why”
Begin with defining your “why.” For every firm, that is going to look a bit of completely different––and that’s a great factor. Root your “why” within the services and products for which your organization has experience, and within the areas of Goal which are passions to your folks.
Cisco services and products energy the Web, together with networking, safety, collaboration, cloud administration, and extra. So, our “why” was deeply rooted in connecting the world and discovering a solution to a seemingly easy query, “what number of lives may we alter?” It was rooted to find out what was attainable if we pushed ourselves and our firm in new methods, leveraging our core enterprise of connection and innovation, and investing in partnerships and progressive options.
We had been pushed to attach longstanding challenges with new potentialities to beat and to deepen our understanding of create lasting change. Alongside this journey, we articulated our firm’s Goal, to Energy an Inclusive Future for All.
Clearly outline your supposed impacts
There are a lot of methods to outline impression, so it’s vital to get clear about how your organization will outline and measure it.
We labored with our nonprofit companions to develop a shared definition of constructive impression. Collectively, we agreed that constructive impression happens when a person has gained entry to a important useful resource, realized one thing, or participated in a significant method.
For instance, for job seekers, constructive impression is achieved by finishing a coaching program and acquiring a job that gives steady and ample revenue. For college students, it’s gaining information and demonstrating proficiency in the subject material. And for a group in want of water, it’s having a dependable, inexpensive supply of unpolluted ingesting water that’s accessible to all folks inside the group.
Construct a rigorous monitoring methodology
Monitoring and validating impression is a posh however essential course of. That is important for transparency and correct reporting, and figuring out whether or not you might be having the specified impression.
Our methodology centered on discovering a steadiness between rigor to make sure consistency and accuracy and assembly the wants of our nonprofit grant companions.
Along with validating constructive impression, our methodology ensures every particular person counted is exclusive, and that they’re solely counted as soon as over time. For instance, some folks might profit from a number of applications inside a yr or might profit from the identical program over a number of years – they’re solely counted as soon as inside the timeframe of our One Billion Lives purpose.
We acknowledged that we couldn’t all the time precisely quantify the impression of some classes inside our Social Affect investments. To deal with this, we didn’t embrace a few of our social impression grants the place the nonprofit accomplice didn’t have a option to rely distinctive people positively impacted. This was the case, for instance, with a few of our nonprofit companions who handle meals insecurity – as they don’t monitor distinctive people who obtain help.
Cisco engaged PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to conduct an impartial restricted assurance of our progress towards our purpose and our accompanying methodology and validation processes between FY16-FY22, making certain our path to at least one billion was sound. We utilized the identical method and methodology in FY23.
Put money into potential
With an audacious purpose, clear definitions of impression, and a rigorous methodology in place, we turned our consideration to executing towards our funding mannequin.
Cisco focuses on getting in early – offering important seed funding to promising nonprofits to ideate, create, and take a look at tech-enabled options. Whereas investing in confirmed options responds to speedy wants, figuring out and investing in new and progressive options may also help scale and amplify your impression over time.
Our technique of investing in tech-enabled options stems from who we’re. As a know-how firm, we imagine within the energy of know-how to attach the unconnected, and in addition to have impression at scale.
We help our nonprofit companions past money grant funding. We donate our know-how to allow our companions to ship their choices extra securely and successfully and join them to material consultants throughout the corporate, and to key organizations, companions, and funders. We do that to make sure that our companions can have sustained impression effectively past the lifecycle of our engagement with them.
Our Social Affect Grant companions get the time, area, funding, and adaptability to check their options. As these options are validated, we offer continued help to assist our companions replicate these options to new geographies and scale to succeed in extra folks. Cisco positive aspects a greater understanding of the problem they’re fixing and what it takes to drive true impression. All of us develop from innovating – collectively.
What’s subsequent?
As we speak, we’re sharing with you our Blueprint to One Billion. As we ponder our subsequent impressed purpose, we’re dedicated to sharing extra about what we’ve realized in positively impacting one billion lives and to understanding extra in regards to the challenges confronted by communities all over the world. We are going to share tales of our companions, the work they do, the options we now have funded, and the lives which have been impacted consequently.
- Discover the inspiring tales inside our purpose to positively impression One Billion Lives
- Go deeper in understanding all that Cisco is doing to deliver the ability of function to life inside Cisco’s FY23 Goal Report
- Hear from Brian Tippens and Man Diedrich how we’re persevering with to broaden our method to constructive impression in The subsequent one billion lives
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