At the eighth annual Corporate Philanthropy Summit hosted by the CECP this past June in New York City the bywords were collaboration, systemic change, advocacy and sustainability as reported online in “on Philanthropy” by Elisabeth Anderson, Shannon Bond & Erica Pagan.

It’s good to see sustainability on the short list along with one of its elements – systemic change- and two keywords or practices, collaboration and advocacy, but basically its strategic importance as the business and investment strategy is not understood as reflected in this meeting report.

From the article it seems that what was meant by sustainability was making their contributions sustainable with no indication of the vital role they could be making in driving sustainability principles and practices at all levels from the personal to the global.

I just don’t think it’s going to be business as usual ever again and if the anticipated “new growth” referenced in the article is not based on sustainable development principles and the Internet used effectively for collaboration and advocacy, our citizens are in big trouble as is our planet. It’s not just the climate that’s a big problem.

Sustainability needs to be a strategy not a program. It needs to be the strategy that drives all programs, all investments.  Advocacy focused on supporting the cause of sustainability nets big changes precisely because it brings a focus to collaborative efforts, all of us need to be on the same page at the strategic level.