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Business is an unlikely hero: a force for good working to solve society's most pressing challenges, while boosting bottom line. This is social purpose at work. And it's a dynamic journey. Purpose 360 is a masterclass in unlocking the power of social purpose to ignite business and social impact. Host Carol Cone brings decades of social impact expertise and a 360-degree view of integrating social purpose into an organization into unfiltered conversations that illuminate today's big challenges and bigger ideas.
Carol Cone:
I'm Carol Cone, and welcome to Purpose 360, the podcast that unlocks the power of purpose to ignite business and social impact. Today, what a fabulous conversation we're going to have. My guest is someone I've admired for many years, a true champion of corporate social impact, and a guiding force behind the field's evolution. Andrea Wood is my guest, and we are going to have this delightful conversation.
Andrea is now six months into her new role as president and CEO of the Association of Corporate Citizenship Professionals, affectionately called ACCP, but her journey began at two purpose-infused companies, Target and Best Buy, where she helped shape the next generation of CSR strategy. At Best Buy, Andrea had the unique opportunity to work under the leadership of Hubert Joly, one of the foremost thinking CEOs in embedding purpose at the core of business transformation. Andrea is also co-creator of the Best Buy Teen Tech Centers, a huge standout in corporate social impact, and we're going to get into some of its secrets for success.
Andrea brings that same clarity, conviction, and collaborative spirit to ACCP at a pivotal time for the field. In our conversation, we'll dive into the just released sixth Annual CSR Insights Survey, which captured the pulse of over 100 CSR leaders across the country. What emerged is both sobering and energizing. While 43% of the respondents say their teams are growing in visibility, responsibility, and career advancement, they're also navigating intense scrutiny, particularly around ESG and DE&I. We'll explore what that means for CSR professionals today, how they're adapting their priorities with more emphasis on workforce development, K through 12 education, food insecurity, and environmental sustainability.
Andrea offers not only insights, but inspiration on how the field is maturing, how AI is transforming productivity, and how leadership grounded in values can help CSR evolve from a cost center into competitive advantage. So, let's begin. Welcome to the show, Andrea.
Andrea Wood:
Thanks for having me.
Carol Cone:
It's my pleasure. It's an amazing organization and I want to start out by just saying congratulations on the new role. I know that there were big shoes to fill with Caroline Berkowitz and that I actually had her on the show a couple of years ago. So, we're going to hear about the new direction and what's exciting also today is that Monday in my newsfeed, I got your new Annual CSR Insights Report. This is a great, great piece of data and that you did it with YourCause from BlackBaud, so I know we're going to get into that. But first, a little bit about you, tell our listeners and our viewers about your career and especially the roles that you played at Best Buy and Target.
Andrea Wood:
Great. Well, thanks again for having me. I'm excited about being here today and to talk about the work of ACCP. Just a little bit of background before I talk about me, ACCP is a premier membership organization for corporate social impact professionals. Actually, I was a member for years first in my role in community relations at Target and then in social impact at Best Buy. So, I know firsthand the benefits of being a member and the community that we create.
We really help our members lead with purpose by connecting them with practical insights and data and tools and peer learning that support both the business side of things and the social impact side of things. For me particularly, I spent most of my career in the corporate sector actually first at Travelers where I was in corporate communications. Then I moved to Target and corporate communications, and from there, I moved on to the community relations side, and then I moved to Best Buy. I spent 13 years at Best Buy all on the social impact team and really was able to help launch the signature program of Best Buy, the Best Buy Teen Tech Centers.
Carol Cone:
We're going to get into that in minute because I love that program. It's great.
Andrea Wood:
I love that program too. I loved being at Best Buy. I loved being able to bring a program like that to life and of course an amazing team, amazing CEOs while I was there. So, I learned a lot about corporate social impact, and now I'm really excited to bring that knowledge of the profession to ACCP where we can think about how best to serve our members and how we can help them with the ultimate mission of helping our members increase their impact overall. So, everybody's trying to make a positive difference in the world. How can we help and create a supportive community where our members can thrive and where they can do the best work?
Carol Cone:
So I want to go back to go forward, so I want to follow this, but I have to ask about Hubert. I'm just curious about, were there one or two things that you being in his constellation that you took away which we could share with our listeners and viewers?
Andrea Wood:
Yeah, I was so lucky to be able to work with him. I'll tell you, I was at Best Buy for 13 years. The first year I was there, the company was really struggling. We had just lost our CEO and there was an interim CEO and the stock price had tanked. Amazon was basically eating our lunch. I say our because I feel like I'm still there in some ways. The board made a really great decision to bring Hubert in. I remember very vividly he did a town hall, so a meeting of all employees to share his turnaround strategy. There were five pillars and the obvious ones around making sure we're serving our customers and all of those things, but there was one pillar that was on there that was about community. It was like, "We are going to continue to make a positive difference in the community."
That is one of the five pillars of this turnaround. I was on the community team, so I was like, "Wow, we see ourselves here." So obviously, Hubert sees the business value of leading with purpose, right? Because we were in a turnaround situation and that could have been the first thing to go. Sometimes it is for other companies, but he saw the leading with purpose as the way to turn around the company.
So, I felt really lucky to be working under him during that time because he had such a commitment and understood that in order for employees to feel good about their jobs and to feel good about the companies that they are working in, they have to feel like the company has a purpose and that purpose is aligned with them. I mean, I just can't say enough great things about working for him. He really championed the work that we were doing.
Carol Cone:
I love your purpose because it's memorable, enriching lives through technology.
Andrea Wood:
Technology.
Carol Cone:
What is your personal purpose?
Andrea Wood:
Well, at ACCP, it allows me to realize that purpose, which is to figure out how I make a positive difference in the world, how I really create change that will benefit our communities where we live and where we work. So, I got to do that at Target and Best Buy. So, I was really lucky to be able to do that, but now I get to do it in a different way by helping all of our members do the best work that they can do and help and support each other. So, that's really my purpose. It sounds cheesy, but I've always wanted to make a positive difference. That's really what drives me. That's what gets me up in the morning.
Carol Cone:
Not cheesy at all. The world needs so much of what you and ACCP does. So, that's wonderful. So, I'm curious, I know that you are an incredible learner, that's one of your traits and that you do great listening. So, when you did your initial listening tour with members, I'm curious about what were the top things that they were saying.
Andrea Wood:
Yeah. Well, I think the biggest thing that our members want and need and get from ACCP is community. We have these online forums where you can post a question and say, "Hey, I'm struggling with how to respond to the disaster in Texas, the flooding." You'll be amazed at how many members respond and say, "Here's what we're doing. Here are some great resources. How can we help you?" And even businesses that are competitive in the business world, they're not competitive in our world. They want to help each other and they want to support each other because at the end of the day, everybody's trying to do good work and make a positive difference.
Carol Cone:
Your sixth Annual CSR Insights Report just came out and you have some incredibly important findings. Especially since we're living in a highly politicized, there's wars, there's cultural wars and the words DE&I and ESG and I'm not so sure CSR is being beaten up that much, but you asked the question I thought was interesting about to your members, are they very concerned? Are they partially concerned? Are they not concerned at all?
I want to read these numbers up because you said 18% were very concerned about what was happening and then 25% were concerned, 29% somewhat concerned, and 28% not concerned, which is a really broad spectrum. You've got all of the community that you're creating and supporting. What are you saying with that to them and with them regarding navigating these roiling waters?
Andrea Wood:
Yeah, I think that our members are concerned and they are struggling to figure out how to continue to do this work, but the majority of them are continuing to do the work and they're just talking about it differently. So, we talked about some of the language changes that companies are making. I would say it's not about making changes to language to make it more palatable. I think it's actually helping explain what the work is and how we're doing it. So, companies might be reaching out and serving communities that don't have as much investment or underserved. They may have the same partners, but they want to talk about it differently. They may want to talk about it as workforce development or economic mobility, which is to be honest, what they have been doing.
They just have not been using those words. So, explaining their work that way helps others understand this is what I'm trying to do to help these communities where they don't have as many resources or opportunities. I'll give you one example on the Twin Cities. I like to use this example because I was very much involved in this. The Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul, we have an aging workforce. We have a lot of corporate headquarters, a lot of big companies who are focused in the Twin Cities and an aging workforce. Then about 100%, I think this is not exaggeration, 100% of the young people who are coming up through the pipeline who are going to be taking over the jobs from the demographic changes in retirements are from communities that are very diverse.
So, when you look at the business side of this, businesses in the Twin Cities are looking at, "Oh wow, okay, we've got an aging workforce. We've got a lot of folks who are heading to retirement. We're going to have these jobs. We want to recruit in our hometown. This is where our headquarters is. If we don't reach out to those young people and make sure that they have the sufficient training, education, and opportunities to become ready for these jobs, we're going to have people to fill these jobs in the future."
So looking at it from that perspective and then being able to explain that to both internal and external stakeholders to say, there is a business value to investing in these communities because these are our future workers.
Carol Cone:
This provides business value.
Andrea Wood:
Exactly.
Carol Cone:
And that's the kind of work that we have been doing with our clients, which is to go from the soft language to your point, this is workforce development and other really important areas. I wanted to ask you a really specific question about language. Again, ESG and DE&I have become persona non grata in a way. Do you have any favorites to describe... I'll separate them out. Let's do DE&I because I've heard some great words and language, but I'm curious about any language that you like that a company can in their social impact report or whatever they're going to call the report. We want to report on DE&I, but we're calling it something different.
Andrea Wood:
Yeah, I've seen every company's doing this a little differently. I've seen inclusive leadership, inclusion and belonging, inclusivity. What I like about those words is that it really is much more descriptive of what companies are trying to do, right? They're creating workplaces where everyone can thrive, where everyone can see themselves. Everyone feels like they belong. So, inclusion and belonging makes sense to me, and I think it makes sense to a lot of people.
So, it's not just about your race or your gender or any of that. It's really about, "Do you see yourself here? Do you feel like you belong, and do you feel like you can be part of this company and its mission?" I think that's really important, and it explains a lot. Then I talked about this earlier, but in some of the work that you might be doing with disinvested or underserved communities explaining the why around why I am investing in this particular community. Well, I'm investing in this community because young people in this community don't have as many opportunities for education or career development or career exploration, and we need these young people to be ready for our jobs. So, that's really important is to explain the why around why I'm doing this work in this particular community.
Carol Cone:
Now, tougher one is ESG. Are you hearing any terms? I mean, Michael Maslansky and his research a couple years ago, he called it Responsible Business. But I'm just curious, has anybody come up with a different name or you're hearing different names companies use?
Andrea Wood:
Well, going back to corporate social responsibility, that was something, it was a term that we used a while ago and then fell out a favor and then ESG came on board. Sustainable business practices is another one. I like corporate social responsibility because I think it encompasses the broader strategy. It can include sustainability, can include social impact, can include how we treat our employees and our communities. So, I like that. I never, to be honest, liked ESG because I felt like it was too wonky.
Carol Cone:
It was.
Andrea Wood:
Most people who were not in the field or were not close to the work had no idea what it meant, and it was just too hard to explain. So, I think corporate social responsibility or sustainable business practices, that's a little easier for somebody who's not close to this field to understand what you're trying to do.
Carol Cone:
I thought it was really fascinating in the report about which issues were being prioritized and deprioritized. To your point, Andrea, workforce development plus K through 12 education plus food and security, and those were all the same percentage, 43%, close on their heels. Did those surprise you at all?
Andrea Wood:
They didn't surprise me, and I think this reflects long-term strategy. So, we're not seeing companies really change the way that they have set up their strategy. would say the thing that we are seeing with our members is much more of a request from the community around crisis needs. So, basic needs and crisis needs. That is because so many of the nonprofit partners are seeing cuts from the federal government or they're seeing funders cut back for a variety of reasons, other funders. The problem is that the corporate philanthropic community cannot fill the gaps that the government has played that they have filled. So, this is a real struggle right now.
Carol Cone:
Yeah, absolutely. I love the fact that you asked about what's changing, what's increasing, and what's decreasing from 2023 to 2025. I'm going to get to the next question because the worrying is a lot of it about the politicization, but also about AI. So, you also asked the question about AI and where are ACC professionals in their use of AI? The increase was astounding. I mean, it took 36% to 72%. That's about 100% increase. So, is that surprising to you? Are you providing more training and resources to your members in AI?
Andrea Wood:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's a lot of interest in it. In fact, during our conference in September, we'll have more programming on this. We actually just did AI summit, our two-day AI summit for our members a couple months ago. It was really to help our members understand how to leverage AI within their scope and their field.
As we all know, most companies are working with nonprofits that are working with human beings. So, human beings are hard to measure, but AI is actually helping with that. That's really important because when I talk about them being able to share the business value, executives want to know the metrics. They want to be able to see that their investment in the community is actually making an impact and that it's affecting positive change. So, AI can help with all of that.
There's a lot of concern, I think, about AI and that's going to take away jobs, the fears. I think those are valid, but I also think there's an opportunity to leverage AI to think about, "What is the best way to address this social issue? What is the most effective?" And that's what I think our members are heading to is not just how can I be more productive in my job, but how can I actually make a bigger impact in the community?
Carol Cone:
I want to turn to brilliance. So, you were the creator of the Best Buy Teen Tech Center. Can you explain a little bit about the journey, how you came up with the idea?
Andrea Wood:
Yeah, I don't want to take full credit for it because I like to say I was in the room where it happened. We were basically ideating and thinking about what is the signature program that makes sense for Best Buy? And again, back to the business. So, the purpose of the company was to enrich lives through technology. Employees were passionate about technology. So, thinking about a program that would be able to leverage that passion and that expertise and the Best Buy Teen Tech Centers came to life from that. Really what I love about that program is that you can talk to anyone about the Best Buy Teen Tech Centers and they 100% understand the alignment to the business.
So, we wanted to make a difference and get young people trained. Just to explain them really quickly, they're free after school state-of-the-art tech programs for young people, Best Buy partners with community partners like the Boys and Girls Clubs and libraries and others to put these tech centers in those spaces where young people are already going and young people get the opportunity to get experience, exposure, and training and career pathway programming to be prepared for the tech jobs of the future.
So, again, back to the business results, you're starting to see this development of this amazing young talent pipeline and employees have the opportunity to be engaged and share their passion and expertise in a way that's very meaningful. So, really it's a great example of how a company can align its purpose and its vision and its mission to its community work and its business strategies.
Carol Cone:
Yeah. So, great segue to... I know we talked a little bit about measurement, but let's talk a little more about measurement, which is what are you seeing in the measurement arena? We're trying to tie it closer to the business. We have net promoter scores, which I think are always great, and then you could have reputation institute if a company is involved in that and they can use their scores. But do you have any favorites that are close to your heart? I really love measuring this way.
Andrea Wood:
I think the most concrete measurements, the one that's most easily accessible to CSR practitioners is the employee engagement measurement. So, those scores, the annual survey, most companies do those annual surveys or maybe they do them more often, being able to show the direct connection between the work that the company is doing around purpose and community and how employees feel about working there is really important.
They feel better about working there, they stay longer, retention numbers are better, but you need to have your own data to be able to show what you're doing is having a direct impact on that. I would say it's hard sometimes because those surveys, they don't want them to be too long, and sometimes our members have to fight to get a question or two.
Carol Cone:
I know. Oh, we can get one question.
Andrea Wood:
Exactly.
Carol Cone:
Which is heartbreaking.
Andrea Wood:
I understand that there's a lot of competition for those questions, but it is really important and I think it's an easy way for CSR practitioners to show the business value of their work. Equally important is customer data. That's harder to get.
Do I send out this customer email about this new product or do I send it out about community? You're always competing for space and attention, but if companies are able to measure the impact of how a customer feels about your brand because they understand and know what you're doing in the community, it could be golden. Again, we have lots of data to support that community impact drives reputation, but if you can show that direct correlation between what you're doing and how customers feel about your company, that is great.
Carol Cone:
Well, that's really, really good. We created this measurement tool called EPIQ, Employee Purpose IQ, which is to your point though, it's 18 different questions and attributes that becomes a dashboard. But the challenge to it, to your point, is getting on the annual survey. Do I want to add another 15 minutes with these questions?
But as your members are moving towards more business value, hopefully, that they can say, "Hey, I want to prove this to you. I want to have a dashboard that shows where we're working, where we can improve."
I'm curious about career advice. There's a lot of young people coming out of school. They're actually not even getting jobs, but they want to have an impact. They don't just want to be a management consultant or a financial analyst or such. They want to do well and do good. What advice do you give them in terms of what should they prepare, how should they prepare to get that foot in the door for that first job?
Andrea Wood:
Yeah. Well, first, let me just do a plug for a resource that we have on our website, accp.org. It's called CSR Launchpad. It's actually an online course that if you are new to the field or want to learn more about the field, potentially thinking about getting into the field, it's a great online course that you can take. It's free to anyone, so anybody can log on and take the course. It gives you a really nice overview of this field because this field can be a little mysterious sometimes.
Carol Cone:
Great word, great word. Now let's talk about people that are in the middle of their careers. So, they're in companies. Maybe they're a director role, a senior manager role, but they really want the lead dog role. What insights do you have for them to ultimately get that golden ring?
Andrea Wood:
Yeah, I think a really important piece is understanding the business. So, if that particular person has not been enmeshed in the business, maybe they didn't come from the business side, maybe they came from HR, communications or something, a nonprofit. They don't really understand the business and what drives business leaders in particular. They're not going to be able to move up the ladder. So, that's a big piece is really understanding with each leader within the business, what motivates them, what are they accountable for, and then-
Carol Cone:
What motivates them, that's a great point.
Andrea Wood:
It's really important because it's actually different. It's different with every leader. You can't assume that they all want to do the same things because they don't, right? So understanding their goals and then how can you help them? So what's your role in helping them achieve their goals? That's really important. Then also I think understand the naysayers too. Are there folks in your company who maybe don't support your work? Most of the time because they don't really understand it. Take the time to build those relationships and make your case to showcase what you're doing. I think storytelling is a really important part of that.
The metrics are really important. You can't get by without the metrics, but then use storytelling to bring that to life.
Carol Cone:
Thank you. I hate to call this to an end, but it's been an amazing conversation. ACCP picked an amazing CEO, so congratulations again, but I always like to give the last words to my guest.
Andrea Wood:
I would say that this is a point in time, our members are stressed for a variety of reasons. Businesses are stressed. The world is stressed. It feels like a difficult time. My words of encouragement are that we have been here before. We might not have been exactly here before, but we have been here before in times of strife and difficult times, and we have made it through. The more that we can help companies just stick to their strategies, continue to make the positive impact they're making, continue to talk about both the community and business results, the more successful we're going to be in the long term.
So, my advice is to keep this in perspective. This is a point in time. We are all here. ACCP is a great community. You have great folks who can support each other, find that support, get what you need so that you can continue to do the great work that you're doing.
Carol Cone:
Beautiful. Brilliantly stated. Andrea, you are just the bomb.
Andrea Wood:
Good bomb.
Carol Cone:
Thank you for coming on the show. I know that the organization's in great hands. You've got a lot of great aspirations, which is brilliant. So, thank you very much. When you get some of those additional things, we always like to have our best guests come back in a year or so. So, you have an open invitation to return.
Andrea Wood:
That sounds great. Thanks so much for having me. I really enjoyed the conversation.
Carol Cone:
This podcast was brought to you by some amazing people, and I'd love to thank them. Anne Hundertmark and Kristen Kenney at Carol Cone on Purpose, Pete Wright and Andy Nelson, our crack production team at TruStory FM, and you, our listener. Please rate and rank us because we really want to be as high as possible as one of the top business podcasts available so that we can continue exploring together the importance and the activation of authentic purpose. Thanks so much for listening.
This transcript was exported on Jul 19, 2025 - view latest version here.
p360_206 ACCP RAW (Completed 07/19/25)
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