The Force for Change Award
The Force for Change Award annually recognizes and rewards outstanding Net Impact members who have led an employee or student-driven project with tangible positive social and/or environmental impacts on their campus, in their workplace, or in their community.
While other competitions reward efforts initiated by corporate heads or university administrators, The Force for Change Award focuses solely on grassroots efforts initiated by employees and students.
If you have led a project in your organization or on your campus that is above and beyond your traditional role as a student or professional, this is your chance to inspire the Net Impact network with your work and receive recognition for your efforts to create a more sustainable and just society through the power of business.
One award will be granted for each of the following categories: undergraduate, graduate and professional.
How to Enter
>> Download the entry form (.doc)
>> Submit the entry form
Both teams and individuals are eligible to enter.
Leaders of teams entered in the competition must be current Net Impact dues-paying members.
Projects must be focused on using business and business skills to create positive social and/or environment impacts on campus where the project leaders attend school, in the company/organization where the project leaders work or in their communities.
The team or individual entering the competition should play a leading role in creating the social or environmental outcome documented in the entry. Relative impact of the Net Impact member’s team will be weighted heavily in the judging process. Thus, projects initiated by the school or organization where the student/professional attends/works will be scored significantly lower than projects initiated by students/employees.
Examples of eligible entries include:
- Execution of workplace greening plans
- Development and implementation of environmental impact reduction plans for events on campus or at work
- Coordination of ongoing workplace volunteer programs
- Creation of the business case for green building programs
- Implementation of public-private partnership with local nonprofit organization
- Results of a pro bono nonprofit consulting project
>> Read about the 2009 Challenge winners for more examples of eligible projects
Examples of ineligible entries include:
- Volunteer projects that do not involve an application of business-related skill sets
- New business ventures (i.e, business plans) or products
- Participation in organization-wide initiatives not started by the Net Impact member or team entering the contest
- Projects whose main impact occurs outside the time range specified below
Projects should occur in the period from June 1, 2009 – June 1, 2010. Ongoing projects started before June 1, 2009 are also eligible. For ongoing projects started before June 1, 2009, only impacts in the period from June 1, 2009 – June 1, 2010 will be evaluated.
Projects will be judged on the criteria above from June 11 – Mid July, 2010. Finalists will have a chance to present to the panel of judges via webinar in July (exact date TBD).
Deadlines
Final submissions were due Friday, June 11, 2010.
During difficult economic times, we are focusing the Awards on projects that demonstrate value added to campuses and companies through social and environmental initiatives led by Net Impact members. By “value-added,” we mean initiatives that are closely connected to furthering the objectives of the organization/campus/community in which they operate. Such value is not limited to monetary gains, but also includes increased employee engagement, professional development gains, waste reduction, quantified gains from pro-bono consulting projects, and others. Projects that effectively measure impact will receive the top scores.
All eligible submissions/contributions will be tallied, ranked, and evaluated by our selected panel of judges, based on the following criteria:
- 40%: Measurable difference in key environmental or social area/ability to quantify value of initiative to the organization/campus/community
- 25%: Qualitative impact of the project
- 20%: Creativity of approach
- 15%: Long-term sustainability of initiative
Libby Reder,
Business Leader, Corporate Responsibility, Visa
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Libby Reder has recently joined Visa Inc. as Business Leader, Corporate Responsibility. In this role, Libby will be focused on employee engagement, giving, volunteerism and disaster response. Prior to joining Visa, Libby was Head of Environmental Initiatives at eBay Inc., where she improved the environmental performance of eBay’s operations and teamed with eBay's employees and users to promote more sustainable behavior. Before joining eBay in 2006, Libby spent five years as Professional Staff to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, where she sought and advanced policy solutions in a wide range of issue areas and drove productive, multi-sector dialogue. Libby holds an MBA with a focus on responsible business from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and BA in Government from Dartmouth College. |
 Nick Aster,
Founder, TriplePundit.com
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Nick Aster is founder of TriplePundit.com, an innovative new-media company that fuels the evolution of sustainable business by bringing intelligent, passionate and balanced perspectives to our ongoing dialog. He has also worked with companies like Nike, SAP, Gawker Media, TreeHugger.com and Mother Jones Magazine.
Nick holds an MBA in sustainable management from the Presidio Graduate School and graduated with a BA in History from Washington University in St. Louis. |
Lisa Neuberger,
Senior Manager of Strategy, Accenture
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Lisa Neuberger-Fernandez is the Strategy and Innovation Lead on Accenture’s Global Corporate Citizenship team. She has worked in sustainability since 2007 when she led a seventy-five person team of Accenture volunteers to win first place in the Net Impact Green Challenge competition. She subsequently became the company’s first US Eco Lead and a Sustainability Business Development Director driving top and bottom-line value for Accenture’s Communications & High Tech clients through green data centers, sustainable supply chains, green product innovation and cleantech strategies.
Prior to that, she spent ten years with Accenture as a strategy consultant, developing and implementing business strategies and performance management frameworks with clients in diverse sectors including government, nonprofit, communications & high tech, and financial services. She also played social intrapreneurial roles managing teams that launched a nonprofit consulting organization spun out of Accenture (www.newsector.org), the US Eco Program, and a patented Public Service Value ROI model and consulting practice area. In addition, she spent one year as a founding research fellow in Accenture’s Public Service Value Institute (www.accenture.com/publicservicevalue).
Lisa has direct public sector experience from working at the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, the White House and the U.S. Senate. She graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania and has an MBA degree from Wharton Business School and a master's degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. She is active on the advisory boards of several nonprofit organizations – including ArtWorks for Change, the Fletcher School’s Development Committee, Education Pioneers, and Net Impact – and has served as a judge for the Net Impact Force for Change Award, Echoing Green Social Innovation Fellowships, Global Social Venture Competition, and the San Francisco Public Managerial Excellence awards.
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Tim Mohin,
Director of Corporate Responsibility, AMD
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Tim Mohin joined AMD as the Director of Corporate Responsibility in December of 2009.
Prior to joining AMD, Tim was a Principal Consultant and Team Leader for EORM's growing sustainability and corporate social responsibility practice were he advised senior executives at Fortune 500 companies.
Formerly, Tim led Apple’s Supplier Responsibility program where he initiated the company’s world-class social and environmental responsibility program.
Tim also had a twelve year career with Intel Corporation from 1995-2006 where he held several positions including Director of Sustainable Development, Director of Employee Communications, Corporate Environmental Manager and Government Affairs Manager. Significant accomplishments include Intel’s highly successful design for the environment program and Project XL (Excellence and Leadership), a program designed to improve the environment with less bureaucracy.
Before joining Intel, Tim worked for ten years in the Federal government with both the U.S. Senate and U.S. EPA. Significant accomplishments include the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 and The National Environmental Technology Bill of 1993.
Mr. Mohin has a Bachelors degree in Environmental Biology from the State University of New York and a Masters degree in Environmental Management from Duke University.
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Winners will receive network-wide recognition through our website, newsletters and TriplePundit. A bundle of sustainable prizes is also in the midst of being created. Thus far prizes include: product from Clif Bar, Pangea Organics, and TCHO chocolate, a year subscription for Stanford Social Innovation Review and a copy of The Responsibility: How the Next Generation of Businesses Will Win, by Jeffrey Hollender (co-founder and chairman of Seventh Generation). Stay tuned for additions to this list!
Questions?
Email Britta Durtsche at bdurtsche@netimpact.org
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