T’is the Season for Social Responsibility

As we embrace this season of giving, it’s a powerful time of year to explore three other extremely powerful Ps—people, planet, and profits. We don’t mean that all of the people on the planet are shopping and all the businesses are making profits because of it. No, this connection between people, planet, and profit is deeper and lasts all year long, every year. This season is about giving to others, helping others, and sharing the joys of who we are and what we have with those who may benefit. Building upon this spirit of giving makes this a perfect time to instill in others the need for social responsibility that lasts all year long.

Powerful Questions

Think about these questions as you and your kids get ready for winter break. These topics and ideas can spark lots of adventures over the break from school.

• What responsibilities do people have toward one another—and toward the planet?

• Does this responsibility change when people are part of a corporation?

• What does it mean to be socially responsible, and why is this important?

• How can a for-profit company demonstrate social responsibility?

• How does all of this fit into the holiday season?

A FUTURE Opportunity to Learn More

These are just some of the types of questions kids will explore through a fun and focused activity from the FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ program, designed to help kids in grades K through 8 today to understand the importance of financial literacy to contribute as engaged and informed citizens in the future. Tomorrow’s leaders can even help to shape our society today.

The following background and entrepreneurial activity work together to expose kids to the big concepts that relate to social responsibility. Why not try it over winter break or as soon as school is back in session?

But Corporations Aren’t People, Are They?

First, set the stage for the activity by asking kids to take a stab at defining social responsibility. Explain that it means that, as members of a society, people are responsible for the welfare of all citizens and we are also responsible for the health of the planet. When we apply this concept to business, it means much the same thing: corporations can and should find a balance between economic growth, or profit seeking, and responsibility to society and the environment.

This idea might sound very serious or hard to understand for younger students, but, when you connect it to what we expect the students in our classrooms and members of our families to do, there are many familiar undertones that helps to make this concept more relatable, even to younger learners.

Social responsibility for corporations is about acting responsibly and making business decisions that don’t hurt people, animals, or the environment while still bringing in profits. Social responsibility for corporations doesn’t stop once the profits come in—in fact, that’s when it should really kick into high gear! The social responsibility work of the corporation needs to keep going—and growing. Socially responsible companies and their leaders and entrepreneurs understand that it is through these profits that even more benefits can be realized. Profits can actually help corporations contribute more with, for, and to society by giving back, making differences, and adding value.

The 3 Ps

Socially responsible corporations focus on three Ps—people, planet, and profits. You and your kids can, too. When a company takes care if its employees, community, and customers, it is focusing on people. When a family takes care of its kids, pets, yard, and neighbors, this is the same thing. Introduce this concept to your kids, next.

A company takes care of the planet by being sensitive to how it manages its waste, air pollution, and safety practices. A class or family can do the same thing by not using plastic water bottles, for example. Recycling is another way every class and family can help.

When a company conducts business in ways that take care of people and the planet and also makes a business profit, the company is on its way to being a socially responsible company. When that company re-invests some of its business profit to help make the world a better place, the company is contributing as a socially responsible company in all 3 ways—people, planet, and profits.

Once kids understand a little more about corporate responsibility, they’ll be ready to put these ideas into action through a creative business scenario in the following activity. It’s time to create a corporate responsibility strategy focused on the three Ps: people, planet and profit.

If the Shoe Fits…

Imagine you’re the CEO of a new clothing and shoe company.

Your task is to create a proposal for your employees and board members to vote on that demonstrates the three Ps—people, planet and profits. With your family or classroom, discuss the pros and cons of each proposal and then have everyone vote on the best proposal. The proposal should address these points:

• What makes the winning proposal stand out?

• How does it successfully balance each of the three aspects of corporate responsibility?

• Can you envision an even better proposal with the best single idea from each “P” category (people, planet or profit)?

The 3 Ps at Holiday Time

Socially responsible corporations focus on three Ps—people, planet, and profits. Try these ideas to help engage your kids in the people, planet, and profits ideas.

Help Other People

Suggest one PAY IT FORWARD activity during the holidays. Perhaps you might buy toys for children, visit a local hospital, or serve food in a local shelter or community center. A quick visit to a senior center could be the highpoint of the season for many. Invite your kids to sing a few songs. It’s not the melody that matters—it’s the memories they’ll create and shape for both the singers and the listeners. If permitted, perhaps you might want to also share a quick video to inspire others to do the same.

Whatever you choose, be sure your kids are involved. Answer their questions and discuss the different ways that their efforts make a difference to others.

Gift the Planet

This holiday season, why not use only recycled wrapping paper or bows? Better yet, why not use gifts to wrap gifts? A T-shirt can be a fun wrapping for a book. Save on bows by using candy or markers to decorate boxes. Pick up a few of those inexpensive recycled shopping totes to use as gifts that can hold lots of other gifts. And remember, ‘tis the season to recycle. Reuses old boxes, wrap items in tissue only, and get creative about ways to save trees as well as money this holiday

Think about a longer-term way to gift health to the planet by considering a gift that helps like a composter, real glassware instead of disposables, or the fun gift of a reusable straw. Talk about a perfect stocking stuffer.

Profit from the Profit

As you are making your online gift selections this holiday season, take the extra minute to check out what the company says about its socially responsible activities. Why not choose to add to the profits of a company that is socially responsible to help ensure that your dollars go further and that buying a great gift also does good for others.

Spend Time AND Money

Take a few fun field trips over winter break. Many recycling facilities offer tours and kids love this adventure and it heightens everyone’s awareness. Don’t be surprised when your kids begin to remind you about taking even small steps to save the planet. Encourage your kids to become Planet Advocates. This is another great winter break activity. Help your kids research facts about how everyone can act small to save big!

Holiday Break Ideas

If watching a team make order from trash is not on your list of holiday things to try, why not try these ideas to help kids recognize that understanding a corporation’s choices can and should inform the purchasing choices your class, team, or family makes.

• Pop over to the local science center to explore some exhibits about our planet.

• Swing by the library to research a few topics.

• Check out some movies about our planet. National Geographic has some amazing ones.

• Do some sleuthing on your own to scope out those companies that truly are engaged in socially responsible activities.

What the FUTURE Holds

No matter how you opt to spend your time over the holidays, it’s likely you’ll come into contact with many corporations. See if you can spot the ones who take their social responsibility seriously. It just might influence your purchasing decisions going forward.

In a few days, we’ll be back with our next FUTURES blog post called Kid Patrols! By putting your kids in charge of these few, fun holiday habits, you’ll all quickly discover how these ideas can visibly save your family some money, build some festive holiday community energy, and echo the essence of the season through saving, giving, and donating.

Until then, we also hope you enjoy the other 3 Ps of this season—patience, prosperity, and of course, PEACE.

All Together Now!

Now it’s time to bring it all together! It’s time to wrap up this month of activities to raise awareness that April is Financial Literacy Month with FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™.  This blog post is a true keeper. In this activity, we’ll weave together a clever combination of several of the posts we've shared during this month. By combining these activities to create a right-sized culminating project, we not only reinforce the Financial Literacy concepts we’ve covered, we’re also putting them together for practical use in a cohesive and memorable way for kids. “Wait? THIS is Financial Literacy? How is that possible? This stuff is fun!”

2 + 9 + 19 = FUN!

Kids will apply the budget-making skills introduced in post 2 with their knowledge of supply and demand that was covered in post 9, to test their entrepreneurial knowledge from designing a winning cereal box in post 19 to put together a fun and creative presentation to attract investors to invest in their business!  

If building a favorite cereal company seems too complex for younger kids, it’s easy to adapt this idea to ask “family investors” to invest in a lemonade stand instead. In both cases, begin by guiding kids to list what raw materials and funding they think they would need for their cereal company or lemonade stand. Once they sort through this past, it’s time to create and then make their pitch. 

A Quick Recap

First, have kids take a look back at blog post 2 and revisit how to put together a realistic budget. Kids can model their company budget on this post, determining how much money and what supplies they’ll need to launch their cereal business or lemonade stand. They can start with a checklist of needed supplies and expenses—everything from factory space to cereal boxes or lemons to paper cups—and research ballpark costs for each item to come up with a realistic total. Remind them that time is money, too. Ask them to consider how much work and labor it will take to deliver their company’s results.

Kids will take a cue from blog post 9 to determine pricing for their cereal or lemonade. Focus especially on the “Let’s Make a Deal” section. Then glance back at the weekend reading recommendations in post 20 and recall Pet and Cat’s lemonade stand pricing dilemma to inform their own pricing strategies.

Finally, dive back into blog post 19 for a recap of the basics of product design and marketing and some ideas to kickstart their own cereal brainstorming session. And then reread post 22 for a reminder of social responsibility and how business owners can balance the three Ps of people, planet and profit. Younger kids can focus on creating a sign and pricing strategy that is sure to sweeten their appeal.

Ready, Set, (Rehearse, Revise—and then) Present!

Now they need to put it all together in a compelling and convincing presentation. Suggest that kids make signs, share their budget worksheet, and even make a video to do their presentation. If relatives live elsewhere, kids can make their pitches using a mobile device.

Many older students are quite adept at using presentation software like PowerPoint, Keynote, Prezi and more. Pitches should answer the 5Ws and H: who, what, where, when, why and how. They should discuss competitor cereal products or similar lemonade stands they’ve encountered and explain why their product or approach is special, unique, will appeal to the market, and stand out. By asking kids, “What makes your cereal or lemonade stand better AND different?” you can encourage them to objectively consider and weigh the pros and cons of their idea.

Encourage kids to “teach you a thing or two” as they practice both their Financial Literacy skills and presentation skills. Make it polished and professional. One great way to help kids “see” how their presentation looks is to video a dry run. By hiding behind your phone, kids are bound to be more relaxed. They are also more likely to see where their pitch might need to be adjusted. Remind your kids that it is important to rehearse and revise their presentation before the big pitch. Then ready… set… PITCH!

Weekend Reading Becomes Great Any-Day Reads!

Because this feature was such a big hit over this past month, we're adapting it as we wrap up these 30 Financial Literacy posts to showcase Financial Literacy  Month. For our final reading recommendations, keep these delightful trade titles in mind as you spend time with your kids during transitions, commuting time, and other small pockets of reading opportunity.

Here are 4 different story books and chapter books about Financial Literacy. Check out the library or on Amazon for these titles and more—Financial Literacy stories help bring concepts home for kids in relatable ways.

What’s NEXT?

We're also adapting our Weekend “What If…?” feature to become "What NEXT?" Now that your future cereal or lemonade mogul has made a strong pitch, what steps would they need to take next if they were fortunate enough to secure funding? The cereal entrepreneurs can research how they would actually make their cereal—looking up how and where factories produce cereal, what volume of production they would need to be profitable, and examine test cases of actual cereal companies in the news. Lemonade stand operators can think about possible locations or events for their lemonade stand and start taking steps to put these actions into practice.

Visit Us One More Day in April

Check back tomorrow for the final day of Financial Literacy Month as we recap everything we covered this April and sum up what we’ve shared during this time about the importance of including Financial Literacy activities at home, at school, and on the go. Financial Literacy is part of everything we do, adds value, and helps us all to connect the dots between priorities, goals, and results.

FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ is an ideal FREE resource for students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Please click below to download any of the 29 sections of the program.

The Three Ps: Talking Social Responsibility

Who’s Responsible?

What responsibilities do people have toward one another—and toward the planet? Does this change when people are part of a corporation?

 We’re starting this next week of Financial Literacy Month with a discussion of social responsibility.

• What does it mean to be socially responsible, and why is this important?

• How can a for-profit company demonstrate social responsibility?

These are some of the types of questions kids will explore through a fun and focused activity from the FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ program, designed to help kids in grades K through 8 today to understand the importance of financial literacy to contribute as engaged and informed citizens in the future. Tomorrow’s leaders can even help to shape our society today. This game exposes kids to the big concepts that relate to social responsibility.

But Corporations Aren’t People, Are They?

First, ask kids to take a stab at defining social responsibility. Explain that it means that, as members of a society, people are responsible for the welfare of all citizens and we are also responsible for the health of the planet. When we apply this concept to business, it means much the same thing: corporations can and should find a balance between economic growth, or profit seeking, and responsibility to society and the environment.

This idea might sound very serious or hard to understand for younger students, but, when you connect it to what we expect the students in our classrooms and members of our families to do, there are many familiar undertones that helps to make this concept more relatable, even to younger learners. Social responsibility for corporations is about acting responsibly and making business decisions that don’t hurt people, animals, or the environment while still bringing in profits. It’s about striking a smart balance. Social responsibility for corporations doesn’t stop once the profits come in—that’s when the socially responsible work needs to keep going. Socially responsible companies and their leaders and entrepreneurs understand that it is through these profits that even more benefits can be realized. Profits can actually help corporations contribute more with, for, and to society by giving back, making differences, and adding value.

The 3 Ps

Socially responsible corporations focus on three Ps—people, planet, and profits. When a company takes care if its employees, community, and customers, it is focusing on people. A company takes care of the planet by being sensitive to how it manages its waste, air pollution, and safety practices. When a company conducts business in ways that care of people and the planet and also makes a business profit, the company is on its way to being a socially responsible company. What that company re-invests some of its business profit to help make the world a better place, the company is contributing as a socially responsible company in all 3 ways—people, planet, and profits.

Once kids understand a little more about corporate responsibility, they’ll have the chance to put these ideas into action through a creative business scenario. It’s time to create a corporate responsibility strategy focused on the three Ps: people, planet and profit.

If the Shoe Fits…

Imagine you’re the CEO of a new clothing and shoe company. Your task is to create a proposal for your employees and board members to vote on that demonstrates the three Ps—people, planet and profits. The proposal should address these points:

With your family or classroom, discuss the pros and cons of each proposal and then have everyone vote on the best proposal.

• What makes the winning proposal stand out?

• How does it successfully balance each of the three aspects of corporate responsibility?

• Can you envision an even better proposal with the best single idea from each “P” category (people, planet or profit)?

BONUS!

As a bonus activity, have students research socially minded businesses online and then determine if any of the companies’ approaches overlap with the proposals they created. What other ideas did the businesses implement?

Visit Us Every Day in April

Tomorrow we’ll continue our series of posts for Financial Literacy Month with information about investing. Kids will become familiar with the stock market and learn key terms while taking part in some hypothetical stock purchases.

For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ for students in kindergarten through eighth grade or to download any of the 29 sections of the program, please click below.