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September 2006
In 2001, Alliance Data launched its Neighbor of Choice Program to guide the company's community involvement activities. Armed with a business plan, leadership buy-in, and a formal strategy and program, the company's focus turned to implementation. To help keep abreast of the latest trends in philanthropy and corporate citizenship, Alliance Data partnered with the experts at The Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College and took advantage of its custom training programs to further strengthen its enterprise-wide community involvement efforts.
 Alliance Data’s headquarters are located in Dallas, Texas, and it has more than 40 locations worldwide with approximately 8,000 employees. At many of the company’s U.S. locations, the Neighbor of Choice program is facilitated through a designated employee, or representative, who works directly with the program’s manager in Dallas, Katrina Brooks. It is the role of this representative to promote Neighbor of Choice activities and to plan and organize local volunteer events centered on Alliance Data’s three distinct areas of community service – education, health and welfare, and civic enrichment. This local approach empowers each location and its associates to address the unique needs of their own communities in ways that also deliver value to the business.
Making the Connection
Even though the network of representatives was in place, Brooks, Alliance Data’s Community Relations Manager, soon identified challenges. It became apparent that the Neighbor of Choice representatives were disconnected from one another and lacked a full understanding of the importance corporate citizenship played for Alliance Data. Having attended several executive education programs offered by The Center for Corporate Citizenship, Brooks saw the potential of bringing The Center's executive education to Alliance Data for the benefit of the entire network of Neighbor of Choice representatives.
The Center has worked with companies to measurably enhance their corporate citizenship efforts for over 20 years. A service that many members have sought, like Alliance Data, is The Center's on-site and custom training programs. With the support of Alliance Data’s Executive Committee, Brooks enlisted the expertise of Center staff and faculty to develop a custom training program for its Neighbor of Choice representatives that would serve to:
- Establish a unified working relationship among the Neighbor of Choice representatives throughout its U.S. locations
- Expose Neighbor of Choice representatives to community involvement best practices
- Discuss the importance of community involvement to Alliance Data’s overall business operations
- Foster ideas for new community involvement initiatives
- Better leverage community involvement efforts throughout the company, and
- Validate community involvement efforts via a respected third-party institution
A Series of Summits
The first training program, or “summit,” was held in 2003 at the company's headquarters and representatives from several Alliance Data locations attended. The summit mirrored The Center’s course, “Developing a Strategic Corporate Community Involvement Program,” which provides a comprehensive introduction to corporate citizenship. The summit was so successful that Alliance Data has continued to work with The Center to develop additional training programs for its Neighbor of Choice representatives.
The partnership between The Center and Alliance Data has reaped significant results for the company. Notes Brooks, "There is always great feedback from the summit. It gets people energized and ready to go, wanting to implement new things when they return back to their facility."
"Attending the summit changed my perspective on corporate citizenship by showing me that being a responsible corporate citizen is not just something nice that we do. It's not just balloons and T-shirts, but that it is actually part of Alliance Data's business plan," says Terri Corp, Alliance Data HR assistant, Lenexa, Kansas.
In addition to fostering program buy-in, representatives return to their facilities having forged relationships with their counterparts whom they can contact to share new ideas and their own best practices.
The summits have also spurred an increase in communication between headquarters and the company’s facilities. New community involvement stories from various facilities are now posted on the company's intranet site, educating all employees on the community involvement efforts of the company as a whole.
An added benefit is the increased involvement of middle management. In keeping middle management abreast of the company’s community involvement efforts by virtue of increased communications, they are now more apt to understand the importance of Alliance Data's Neighborhood of Choice Program and why they should support activities in their respective locations.
Brooks credits The Center’s involvement in these summits for validating what the company is asking of its associates. “Hearing Boston College talk about what is going on in the industry and benchmarking and sharing best practices really helps to validate in the participants’ minds what we as a company are doing. This way it is not just an Alliance Data person saying ‘what you are doing is important to the company and here is why,’ but here is an outside party that knows the business, and understands the broader concept of being a good corporate citizen and how to bring that to bear."
To learn more about how The Center can work with your company to develop customized training and consulting solutions, Eileen Blinstrub at 617.552.1467 or e-mail her at holtonbl@bc.edu.
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