Corporate Giants Find Success in Unexpected Partnerships

• 

  Your Email: *

  Your Name: *

  Send To: *

  Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.

  You are going to email the following: Corporate Giants Find Success in Unexpected Partnerships

  Message Subject: (Your Name) has sent you a message from GreenBizSite

  Message Body: (Your Name) thought you would like to see the GreenBizSite web site.

  Your Personal Message: *
  
• 
• 

  Digg
  Del.icio.us
  Reddit
  Stumble Upon
  
• 
• 

In 1984, while Michael Dell was launching his computer company from his University of Texas dorm room, Yvette Marrin was co-founding the National Cristina Foundation (NCF) to provide technology to people with disabilities. Little did either know that twenty years later, her small nonprofit would help his global company solve one of its biggest challenges: creating a sustainable system for managing old computers that consumers no longer want.

While Dell sought help from nonprofits to recycle its products at the end of their life-cycle, Abitibi-Consolidated, one of North America's largest newsprint manufacturers, needed help along another curve in the recycling loop. Three of Abitibi-Consolidated's paper mills use 100 percent recycled fiber and another five use varying percentages, creating a nearly insatiable demand for high-quality feedstock to manufacture newsprint and commercial printing papers with recycled content.

Both Dell and Abitibi-Consolidated say that the decisions to enter into business relationships with nonprofits created unexpected challenges and surprising benefits. They've also discovered that, despite the vast disparities in size and resources between the two sectors, nonprofits can often bring priceless commodities like consumer convenience and loyalty, making them coveted partners.

Dell Finds Its Reuse Partner Online

Michael Dell has freely admitted that he hadn't given much consideration to what happened to his company's products when consumers were done with them -- until environmental groups targeted the company. Today, due not only to Dell's vision for transforming his company into an environmental leader, but also to the strategic relationships the company has established with nonprofits, Dell, Inc. is considered by many environmentalists to be a shining sustainability star.

Dell's first foray into a nonprofit reuse partnership took place in 2000 when the company contacted the National Cristina Foundation. Though initially motivated more by philanthropy and community service than environmental stewardship, the partnership with NCF is now a core part of Dell's sustainability strategy.

"We were the only national charity working on computer reuse that had an online donation form, and since Dell sold online, they wanted customers to be able to donate online too," explains NCF's Marrin of her first contact with Dell. NCF operates an online clearinghouse for used computer equipment. Donors complete an online form describing their equipment, and NCF matches the donor with a pre-screened nonprofit organization nearby that will pick up the equipment and use it to help a disadvantaged clientele.

Dell's website directs consumers interested in donation to a special landing page on the NCF website. The nonprofit gets donations from Dell customers every day, says Marrin. "NCF was able to scale to any volume that came through the Dell donation channel because of the online capability," says Bryant Hilton, Dell's public relations manager for the initial campaign with NCF.

Computer Recycling Requires Consumer Convenience

In 2004, after deciding to actively encourage customers to recycle their old computers, Dell approached Goodwill Industries in Austin, Texas about collecting computers on their behalf. The Dell-Goodwill Reconnect partnership has since expanded to locations in California, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. "In pursuing our goal of finding free ways for consumers to dispose of end-of-life equipment, we wanted take advantage of existing consumer behavior, like donating items to Goodwill," says Joe Strathmann, senior manager of asset recovery services for Dell.

• 

  Your Email: *

  Your Name: *

  Send To: *

  Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.

  You are going to email the following: Corporate Giants Find Success in Unexpected Partnerships

  Message Subject: (Your Name) has sent you a message from GreenBizSite

  Message Body: (Your Name) thought you would like to see the GreenBizSite web site.

  Your Personal Message: *
  
• 
• 

  Digg
  Del.icio.us
  Reddit
  Stumble Upon
  
• 
• 

Post a Comment »