I feel out of place. Let me explain, I’m surrounded by NGO representatives from all over the world. And although this is a press trip, it involves a very different sector from that with which I’ve grown accustomed to in my work over the past few years.
It’s true the structure is the same: a sponsored flight to somewhere, in this case, Bali. (Have you ever been to the Westin in Bali? You might not think much of the Westin in general but the one in Nusa Dua is on a continuous strip of beach resorts by the shimmering ocean and white sands of Indonesia, and, did I mention that it’s in Bali?) There are hosted lunches, dinners and a slow easing into the hosting company’s justification for the invitation.
But in this case, we aren’t here for a product launch or a factory tour. To give you a hint, the real highlight of our trip was a speech by none other than Ban Ki-Moon himself, current Secretary-General of the UN. During our second evening, he stood behind a podium in the large Nusa Dua convention centre and addressed us – the journalists, and the general public – with a wonderfully rousing speech. “We are living in a troubled world,” he said, “As we meet here today, thousands of people are suffering from the tragedies of religious intolerance in the name of faith.” He mentioned ‘religious perversions’ such as Buddhist extremists and ISIS, namely in the context of an introductory speech by another powerful figure, the Qatari diplomat Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser. Al-Nasser had spoken about countries working to build bridges across political and religious borders, in order to address these emerging tensions.
Nasser had also remarked earlier, when he was just talking to us, a select media group, that when people learned he was going to Bali, they envied how lucky he was. “But actually, it’s torture to be brought here, in a suit and tie.” As we laughed, I understood that perhaps I wasn’t the only one feeling a little out of place.
If you haven’t already guessed, my trip has to do with the UN and, more precisely, it’s the sixth global forum of the United Nations Alliance of Civilisations (UNAOC), of which Al Nasser is the UN High Representative. It also happens that the UNAOC has been collaborating with the BMW Group since 2011 in a unique model of public-private partnership. Together, they have created the Intercultural Innovation Award where 10 non-profit organisations are nominated each year, for innovative, grassroots programmes that promote intercultural understanding and competence in new and sustainable ways. This year, the competition was so high amongst the 600 applicants from over 100 countries, that 11 organisations were awarded and Bespoke was included with the Middle Eastern press group invited for the award ceremony.
The face behind the award on the BMW side is Bill McAndrews, the American VP of Corporate Communications Strategy and on the last day of our trip, I get the chance to chat with him one-on-one, regarding BMW’s involvement. I’m in familiar territory once again.
Charismatic and candid, McAndrews looks relaxed even in his formal attire. He begins our conversation by explaining how he ended up in Germany after the start of his career in educational development, in Saudi Arabia. “I had a liberal arts degree from the US and the first impetus for me to go to Saudi was to pay back my student loans, to be honest – this was during the boom years. But I stayed for five years and it impacted my life. You know, I come from a small town outside Boston so it opened me up to another part of the world. This kind of experience enriches you, makes you more adventurous. When I left, I decided to go to Germany where I worked in corporate communications for the energy sector, mostly electricity. I worked for RWE and before that, Deutsche Telekom.”
As the story goes, he was headhunted by BMW in 2006. “Then the UNAOC already existed,” rightly adds McAndrews, for it had been established in 2005 by Kofi Annan, “and I stumbled upon it. At the time, we had the BMW Group for Intercultural Learning but the idea was to go outside the walls of the company. Our common denominator with the UN is the celebration of difference. BMW and Mini exist in 140 countries, more than 90 nations are represented in our Munich office alone. We are a global brand.”
He continues, “This initiative is much more than a marketing tool for us. We want to sell our products and services but we also want to give something back to society, it makes corporate sense.”
Herein lies BMW’s role in all of this. Extending beyond financial support – over 100,000 USD allocated amongst the nominees, with 40 per cent of that going to the top winner – BMW has developed a mentorship and capacity-building programme, aimed at improving the efficacy of the winners not just as organisations but also as free enterprises. This will be in effect for one year after the award and it includes different training workshops and tailor-made assistance based on BMW’s expertise and resources. The awardees also become members in an exclusive online knowledge-sharing network made up of leading organisations, many of them winners from the past.
“In this context, BMW becomes an enabler, it’s more than just a sponsorship tool since we wanted to help the winners grow and replicate themselves. We want them to think strategically so that they know where they want to go. We teach them how to make a business plan. In other words, we want them to think like entrepreneurs,” McAndrews explains, “how to develop a sustainability report and how to measure success vis-a-vis the stakeholders. And this marriage between the public and the private gives them more credibility.”
“But it’s not our job to hold their hands,” McAndrews continues. “At BMW, we’re all about lean management. So we conduct a needs assessment to ask: what do you need to go to the next level? We offer the platforms for them to hone in on the necessary skills, it’s their job to reach out and do what they need to do to expand. And we follow and track them for a year to evaluate their performance record.”
So winning doesn’t mean the challenge is over for the 11 awardees, who still have a lot to prove and learn over the coming years, with the aid of BMW’s commitment. The select sample of cross-cultural organisations this year ranged from a Swedish card game, where people tell different stories of prejudice to an Indian organisation helping migrants along the Indo-Nepal border in order to prevent human trafficking. Second place went to All Together Now (Australia), where a smartphone app allows you to step in the shoes of someone who has experienced racial discrimination for one week and the winning project was, ‘Ordinary Heroes,’ a multimedia peace building initiative (Bosnia & Herzegovina) that exhibits stories and photographs of people who rescued and sheltered ‘the other’ during the ethnic conflict.
Of the countries represented, there were even two Arabs in the mix, ‘arcenciel’, the circus school from Lebanon (5th place), which caters particularly to the marginalised youth, represented by Johnny Girges and ‘Equal for Equal’, which is a German-based initiative launched by a Tunisian, Rania Rabah, in order to raise awareness about gender inequality by encouraging women from all over the world to publish their stories online.
Corporate social responsibility may take various guises but the approach BMW has chosen is clearly reflective of what has made the almost 100-year-old company so successful. And that includes being put to the test in an industry where there’s cutthroat competition. By bringing these extraordinary tales of social inclusion and helping the organisations to help themselves, as is BMW’s motto, it becomes clear that you need to learn how to sell yourself even if you are an NGO in the non-profit world of donor dependence.
“It’s like throwing a stone in the pond,” says McAndrews, “it causes a ripple effect. We want to count those ripples. We are assessing the relationship between input, output and impact. For example, one of our awardees last year got a million dollar grant from Microsoft. That makes us happy.”
WHAT The Intercultural Innovation Award
WHO A JV between BMW and the UNAOC
WHERE Held this year in Bali
WHY These awards are an extraordinary initiative to reward the creativity, commitment, resilience, courage and passion that can lead to more peaceful and inclusive societies.
