About Win-Win Partners
Win-Win Partners are companies and organizations achieving competitive advantage through community investment. Companies employing win-win strategies as smart business solutions include major U.S. corporations such as IBM, State Farm Insurance, Marriott International, Pfizer, the Gap and many others. Win-Win Partners also include national organizations that assist companies with successful execution of these strategies by providing them with valuable services such as research and market data, brokering, networking opportunities with other executives, and years of professional experience in this field.

Win-Win Partners are an outgrowth of the Ford Foundation Corporate Involvement Initiative.

Hear Mitty Owens, Program Officer at the Ford Foundation, discuss asset building for low-income people at the recent Journalist Audio Conference: "High Impact Strategies for Marketing Financial Services to Low-Income Consumers" (1.9 MB)

Hear Michele Kahane, Program Officer with the Ford Foundation discuss the Corporate Involvement Initiative at "Business with a New Beat" a Journalists Roundtable (16 MB)

About the Corporate Involvement Initiative

In 1996, the Ford Foundation launched its Corporate Involvement Initiative (CII) to encourage investment in economic development projects that benefit businesses and communities. The long-term goal of the CII was to increase the use of core operating resources and capacities of business to build human and financial assets for low-income individuals in the United States. Companies have enormous power to benefit low-income communities through their everyday decisions regarding, among other activities, human resource recruitment and development, purchasing, marketing and product development, and site location.

In the short-term, the CII goals were twofold. First, to demonstrate specific ways in which companies individually or collectively can help build assets such as savings, wealth, and marketable skills for low-income individuals. Second, build capacity and leadership within the business, public, and non profit sectors to develop, promote, and diffuse innovative strategies that support both strategic business interests and benefit low-income people.

The CII supports four main types of corporate involvement:

• Small business development – increased access to capital and private sector resources for businesses in inner cities or in lower-income rural communities, or those owned by minorities
• Regional economic development – increased business engagement in equitable and sustainable regional economic development
• Financial asset development – increased provision of consumer financial services to underserved groups
• Workforce development – increased recruitment, training, hiring, and promotion of low-income people

About the Ford Foundation

The Ford Foundation aims to create political, economic and social systems that promote peace, human welfare and sustain the environment - fundamental challenges facing every society. The Foundation believes that the best way to meet this challenge is to: encourage initiatives by those living and working closest to problems; promote collaboration among the nonprofit, government and business sectors and ensure participation by men and women from diverse communities at all levels of society. The Ford Foundation, one of the world’s largest philanthropic institutions with assets in excess of $11 billion, pursues those goals by providing resources for innovative people and organizations worldwide.

Within the Foundation, the Asset Building and Community Development Program uses the concept of “building assets” as a means for reducing poverty and injustice. Most people are familiar with assets such as savings, stocks, or property. The Ford Foundation takes a broader view of the concept of assets as tangible and intangible resources that enable people and communities to exert control over their lives and participate in their societies in meaningful and effective ways.

Disclaimer: Winwinpartner.com is a project of Los Angeles-based Laufer Green Isaac, communications consultant to the Ford Foundation Corporate Involvement Initiative.
Laufer Green Isaac is solely responsible for the content of this Web site.