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Speaker:
・Ms. Kotoko Togo, Chief, CSR & Citizenship Department, Groupwide Brand Strategic Division, Panasonic Corporation
・Ms. Aki Matsuyama, Director, Salesforce.org, Salesforce.com Co.,Ltd.

Moderator:
・Executive Director, Social Impact Management Initiative / Executive Director, Japan Fundraising Association
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In session nine, SIMI introduced practical examples of social impact management (SIM) in corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs with their background, issues and future prospects. One of the speakers, Ms. Kotoko Togo, Chief, CSR & Citizenship Department, Groupwide Brand Strategic Division, Panasonic Corporation, introduced the NPO Support Fund case study. For 20 years the company has been supporting the Fund to provide grants to nonprofits to strengthen organizational infrastructure. Togo explained that the company had incorporated program evaluation because it felt the need to examine whether the grant support was really effective or not. The evaluation has evolved over time through a process of trial and error over the past 20 years. The fact that the evaluation results have been used to improve the grant program is also very helpful as a practical example of SIM for corporate programs.

Ms. Aki Matsuyama, Director, Salesforce.org, Salesforce.com Co.,Ltd.,introduced a practical case of SIM in a support program for nonprofits, using 1% of product profits for the company’s social contribution program (1-1-1 model). The SIM initiative incorporated in the program is part of the company’s core business thag goes beyond it CSR framework. The company’s theory of change (TOC) includes not only the nonprofit organizations it supports, but also corporate employees, the company itself and its partners as actors and beneficiaries for social change. Each speaker also articulated the social impact of each beneficiary group and this inclusion of diverse stakeholders is directly connected to “stakeholder capitalism,” the main theme of Social Impact Day (SID).
The panel discussion in the latter half of the session was useful for those wanting to start SIM in their companies, as they discussed the internal structure necessary for companies to engage in SIM as well as the necessity and importance of involving external experts such as professional evaluators. In Japan, corporate SIM initiatives are mostly practiced in the CSR field. More and more companies are expected to incorporate SIM into their overall corporate management and become more social impact-oriented while learning from these good practices.