Acronym

Susan Sarfati, CEO of the Center for Association Leadership, is discussing ASAE & The Center's social responsibility initiative over breakfast this morning at Great Ideas. One the first things she told the group is that this initiative isn't ASAE & The Center setting down what we believe social responsibility to be and what we think associations should be doing about it; instead, she says, the initiative is intended to facilitate ways for the association community to co-create an agenda for social responsibility in our work.

For instance, the Global Summit on Social Responsibility, April 30-May 2, won't be just a series of speakers telling attendees about social responsibility. The Summit is intended to be a place where discussion will take place among attendees--and ASAE & The Center is hoping to bring together a truly inclusive group of attendees for that discussion, including representatives from trade, professional, and philanthropic associations, industry partners, association board members, experienced association professionals and those new to the community, older people and younger, academics, media representatives, representatives from corporations that have successfully implemented social responsibility in their own organizations, and more.

The Summit will take connect multiple sites around the United States and the world--Robin Lokerman, CEO of the Institutional Division of MCI, said just now that his company alone will host sites in 10 countries. One site will even go live a month in advance to include individuals who can't necessarily participate on the dates of the Summit.

The discussion will follow the techniques of appreciative inquiry, starting with strengths and building on those strengths to innovate and develop strategies for social responsibility.

Goals of the Summit include:

- Share strengths and celebrate successes
- Make the case for social responsibility
- Identify the unique competency and capacity that associations bring to social responsibility and how they can be effectively leveraged
- Identifying opportunities that the association world can uniquely respond to
- Generate and articulate guiding principles for associations in social responsibility

The Summit would create the world's largest social responsibility agenda, when you take into account the 280 million members of our members and the trades, professions, and industries associations represent.

For more information on the Global Summit, visit ASAE & The Center's website.