Buildingblocks International Case - Reasons for Not Closing the Deal

Reasons for Not Closing the Deal

 Firms hadn't seen the obvious benefits.

The profit companies were seeking maximum earnings for sure. They typically disbursed grants to not-for-profit organizations not only just for charity but also to build high reputation in communities. This kind of investment would bring extra return especially to public corporations. In this case, it seemed that helping children in developing countries was not that attractive to these corporations although it was quite meaningful. One reason might be that there would not be direct and impressive influences of this behavior in the domestic market (i.e., U.S.). An important consideration was the locality of the organization's impact and most firms donated principally to organizations that worked in communities in which the firm had customers and/or employees.

 BBI had no clear target firms they should focus on.

Related to the first, the lack of clear targets would be another major reason. Many firms preferred to support causes that were linked to their strategic mission. The mission of BBI was to help the Community-Based Organizations improve educational opportunities for children. In BBI's model, the Corporate Service Corps Members from corporate allies would mainly provide strategic guidance, advice and leadership to CBOs. From this perspective, it was better for BBI to go after professional services, especially consulting firms. Another direction to find corporate allies was going after biggest corporate philanthropists. However, they would receive more requests and had much more strict principles to choose. BBI did not have advantages compared to other projects. The third alternative was high tech firms because a lot of them had sabbatical programs for employees which would provide BBI with Corporate Service Corps Members. In addition, many high tech firms had expanded