Another Corporate Partner Win
International banking and financial services organization HSBC joined PSYDEH as an official corporate partner when they selected us as one of five nonprofits from around the world, and the only one from Latin America, to participate in their 2021 CSR Global Group Graduate Initiative (CSRI).
The initiative
CSRI, produced in collaboration with the world’s leading crowdfunding platform GlobalGiving (GG), brings together teams of first-and second-year bank professionals and pairs them with top nonprofits vetted at multiple levels inside HSBC to work together over a three-month period on a wicked challenge presented by the nonprofit.
How we collaborated
In a show of commitment to PSYDEH’s work and the quality of the challenges we put forth, HSBC dedicated 22 graduates located across the Americas, Europe, and South and East Asia to work in two teams to tackle two separate business challenges.
Team One analyzed PSYDEH’s international volunteer program, what we call our Global Collaborators Program (GCP), with the goal to propose a strategic plan for how we can make it more professional. Our GCP is already the largest source of PSYDEH’s resources on an annual basis but we see that there is room for improvement and growth. We invited HSBC’s business-minded professionals to deliver to PSYDEH a cost-neutral proposal around the question: how can we attract six-to-eight high-quality young-and mid-career professionals from target country markets in the Americas, Europe, and Asia to join PSYDEH every year as either full-time or part-time staff. Producing this result gives PSYDEH the best chance to sustain our sustainable development-oriented fieldwork over the long term, despite a rather challenging funding climate.
Team Two was asked to use PSYDEH’s 2021 social enterprise initiative named Bordamos Juntos (“Embroidering together”) as the basis for developing a practical, effective manual we can use when building a social enterprise. This work will be an extension of planned 2022-2024 work incubating our partner network of Indigenous women-led cooperatives and reflects another possible resource stream for PSYDEH and local women partners. It is especially important during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to help women artisans generate a fair wage for their products, and help us sustain our work moving forward.
Our partnership produces needed outcomes
Working with smart, young HSBC professionals from around the world helps PSYDEH to leave this engagement with the ideas, data, and tools we need to expand these efforts in 2022, and thus sustain our operations and fieldwork.
After months of internal meetings and collaborative meetings alongside PSYDEH staff, we have had the privilege of watching the two teams present their proposals to a panel of four HSBC executives at a virtual awards ceremony. While neither of PSYDEH’s teams was chosen as the winner, both teams’ work constituted an important win for our organization.
As Ryan Lavigne, PSYDEH development officer and co-PSYDEH lead on the CSRI collaboration states, “It was such a privilege to be included in this initiative. The solutions presented by both teams will have a sustained impact on PSYDEH moving forward. It was truly incredible to see a global bank offering internationally-based employees to help tackle problems faced by a grassroots Mexican nonprofit.”
Team One presented to PSYDEH a valuable SWOT analysis of our Global Collaborators Program which informed their thoughtful cost-neutral suggestions to strengthen the program. Their ideas are achievable and, when followed, will bolster the sustainability of the program. The team also points out specific ways that we can increase our online presence and engage with universities, two tactics PSYDEH has already started to implement!
Team Two’s presentation to the panel was animated, clearly designed to complement our Ted-Ed-styled animation on our own process-oriented fieldwork. Their finished product is an impressively polished guide covering the elements to consider when forming a social enterprise, e.g., target customer, distribution channels, product and revenue streams, how to raise capital, and more. The team’s approach was especially innovative because the guide is created to be used by PSYDEH’s women partners as opposed to PSYDEH itself. This decision showed the team’s thoughtful understanding of how PSYDEH operates itself, how we work to empower women to drive their own sustainable development by teaching them how to fish.
In all, the teams shared their thinking in the virtual formal presentation, their final product, and then via a one-to-one presentation with PSYDEH staff. Now, a number of team leaders offer to walk with PSYDEH as we implement their ideas while exploring how we can deepen our collaboration with HSBC.
Who is HSBC
With offices in 64 countries and territories across the globe, HSBC is the sixth-largest bank, and the 40th largest public company in the world, serving more than 40 million customers. Their purpose is to bring together the people, ideas, and capital that nurtures progress and growth, helping to create a better world – for their customers, people, investors, and communities, and the planet we all share. See this case study for more on our HSBC partnership.
Who is GlobalGiving
This organization is the world’s leading crowdfunding platform, giving nonprofits what they need to make their impact by providing organizations with credibility, quasi-flexible funds, tools for democratizing fundraising, and access to a global donor network, especially in the USA and the UK whose citizens are given a tax deduction for all donations. Moreover, by making unique in-kind and financial investments in PSYDEH via collaborations with organizations like HSBC, they play a seminal role in our ability to make a sustainable impact in our community-led development work. See HERE to learn more about how we partner with GG.