Ending Homelessness Through Public-private Partnerships [Video]

Giving Compass’ Take:

• Chuck Robbins, Chairman and CEO of Cisco, and Jennifer Loving, CEO of Destination: Home, describe how their public-private partnership utilizes purposeful funding through CSR to move the needle on ending homelessness. 

• In what other areas can public-private partnerships make an impact on social issues?

•  Read about how to unlock in public-private partnerships. 

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Chuck Robbins, Chairman and CEO of Cisco, and Jennifer Loving, CEO of Destination: Home, discuss how their public-private partnership model is fulfilling its mission to end homeless in Santa Clara County, California. Moderated by Rebecca Cokley of the Center for American Progress.

Rebecca Cokley: So Jen what’s your backstory in this space?

Jennifer Loving: I have been in homelessness since I was a little child. My uncle was a fire-and-brimstone preacher in Venice beach and had a big church in the ’60s and ’70s and let anybody stayed there who needed a place to stay. So I grew up seeing that, that seemed relatively normal. If somebody doesn’t have a place to go, they would go to Uncle Fred’s and they would sleep there. And as I got older and I understood, really, the roots of homelessness and injustice. And I got much more involved in– first, running shelters…any good or bad thing, as it relates to homelessness, I have probably done…

Now though finally, for the last seven or eight years, a real effort around a systemic reduction of people that are outside.

Rebecca Cokley: What have been the challenges in making this partnership that you all have work, and what have been the resources that Cisco’s been able to really bring to the table to be so hands-on in the mission of this work?

Chuck Robbins: Well we started with– we donated $50 million last year, and we just gave $50 million. And the biggest challenge for us is getting other businesses to actually get engaged on issues that, ultimately, aren’t directly beneficial to their business, right? One of the problems, I think, with corporate social responsibility over the last 50 years is that CEOs want to take and talk about all the great things they’re doing, but if you really dig into everything they’re doing — including us– you can draw a line from whatever corporate social responsibility effort there is and benefit to your business.

Read the full article about public-private partnerships from the Ford Foundation.