Corporate Social Responsibility Forum: Second meeting of the business and the civil organisations, 3 December 2010, Sofia

07.12.2010

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For a second year in a row Tulip Foundatiaon, Capital Weekly and the Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria (CEIBG) organised a Corporate Social Responsibility Forum: Second Meeting of the Business and the non-governmental Organisations.

The event was made possible in partnership with New Moment New Ideas Company and the support of MATRA Programme of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Trust for Civil society in Central and Eastern Europe and Bertelsmann Foundation, Germany.

This year the forum was focused on demonstrating how important the good ideas and the true partners are. The speakers gave an answer to the question how companies can be socially responsible without investing large financial resources.

The forum was opened by Ekaterina Popova, Senior Editor of Capital Careers and karieri.bg, Maria Petkova, Director of Tulip Foundation and Levon Hampartzoumian, Vice Chair of the Confederation of Industrialists and Employers in Bulgaria.

What are the benefits of cooperation between the business and non-governmental organisations and how to select an appropriate partner? – was the first theme at the forum which was covered by the guest speaker Jaap van Duijn who presented his long term experience. Jaap van Duijn is a Chief Strategist of Robeco Group; Board Member of Oranje Fonds, the Nationaal Groenfonds and other nongovernmental organisations in the Netherlands.

Henk Kinds, a founder and managing director of Community Partnership Consultants based in the Netherlands, presented best practices of cooperation between the civil and the business sector and from Europe. Mr. Kinds spoke about the CSR 360 Global Partners network and the European Employee Volunteering Award 2011 in the Netherlands. He presented the Marketplace model which is applied in various countries in Europe. Mr. Kinds is a cofounder of this partnership model.

Samuil Simeonov, Project Manager Corporate Social Responsibility and Lifelong Learning at Bertelsmann Foundation, Germany presented the introduction and the development of the Marketplace model in Germany.

The forum continued with a panel discussion for successful practices of nonfinancial cooperation between business and civil organisations in Bulgaria. The participants Nicolay Statev, Head of Department Research and Analysis at Sopharma and Adelina Momcheva, senior consultant at KPMG presented the CSR practices of the companies and their cooperation with civil organisations. Dr. Elena Kabakchieva, Chairperson Health and social development Foundation shared the experience of the foundation in cooperation with Ubisoft Bulgaria, Jovan the Dutch bakery and Chartis Bulgaria who support the work of the team with Roma children, youth and young families in Faculteta neighborhood.