New Social Value Building Designation Unites Owners, Tenants, and Vendors in Support of Social Causes that Delivers ROI to Building Owners.
NEW YORK, NY (August 27, 2020) — Givewith, a technology company driving business growth and stakeholder value that also benefits people and the planet, today introduced Givewith for Real Estate, a new solution for the Commercial Real Estate (CRE) industry. The Social Value Building Designation powered by Givewith helps owners, tenants, investors, lenders, and vendors come together to improve communities and deliver social impact as an amenity to allstakeholders.
“The COVID-19 crisis has had serious implications on commercial real estate. While it’s proven that many tenants can work from home, it’s also been quite difficult for us as social creatures,” said Paul Polizzotto, founder and CEO of Givewith. “Now more than ever before, it is critical for commercial property owners to establish a strong sense of community — one that extends beyond its building walls and into its neighborhood and communities around the globe.”
Expanding on its suite of enterprise solutions for sales and procurement professionals, Givewith’s Social Value Building Designation empowers commercial property owners to give tenants and vendors the opportunity to fund social impact initiatives as part of leasing and vendor agreements. Using Givewith’s proprietary platform and algorithm, stakeholders choose from numerous pre-vetted, social impact program options to unlock a truly differentiated experience. Commercial property owners fund the programs on behalf of their tenants once their tenants have selected their programs.
Mike McNally, former CEO of Skanska, the second largest domestic building contractor in the USA, and former Chairman of the Board of the U.S. Green Buildings Council, the group responsible for LEED certification, said, “Givewith is doing something no one has done and there’s real value here. Any socially responsible employer would definitely like this.”
Places with Purpose: Creating Community Inside and Out
For commercial property owners, Givewith for Real Estate provides a differentiated
building experience that reinforces a share sense of community and improves tenant satisfaction. Tenants leasing space in a building that has earned a Social Value Building Designation can increase employee engagement, retention, and recruiting yields by embedding social impact in their real estate practices without additional cost. For vendors, the designation can help deepen relationships with owners to win more deals, while attracting and motivating employees.
“The Givewith Social Value Designations are particularly compelling for commercial real estate in the context of today’s world,” said Walt Ingram, President & CFO of Wright Runstad & Company, a Seattle-based commercial real estate owner and developer. “Givewith offers a true differentiator for building owners, managers, tenants and vendors that addresses social and environmental responsibility in a thoughtful value-add way. It’s a remarkable win-win solution.”
All Social Value Buildings elements are easily managed on Givewith’s custom SaaS platform, which enables tenants to engage employees in a variety of ways including participation in volunteer activities and by giving input into the programs they wish to support. Vendors that support building operations can also partner to support community impact. The platform makes vendor participation simple, from downloading program information for RFPs and meetings, to creating vendor accounts and tracking participation.
Givewith also delivers engaging experiences directly to each Social Value Building’s community, through dynamic building signage, world-class storytelling communications assets, state-of-the-art lobby video displays, volunteer promotions, a social media playbook, and owner curated events.
Givewith Social Value Buildings are designed to:
- Enhance investor and lender relationships.
- Create stronger relationships between owners, tenants and vendors.
- Deepen community relations with local government officials, neighborhood boards, and municipal leaders.
- Foster employee engagement, pride and productivity, to improve tenant satisfaction.
- Drive higher tenant retention rates and lower rental concessions.
- Positively influence owner, tenant and vendor ESG scores, making their company more attractive to prospective clients, employees, business partners and the financial community.
Givewith has partnered with Boston Consulting Group (BCG), one of the world’s leading management consulting firms, to conceptualize and design Social Value Building Designations. “BCG’s research shows that businesses can derive greater value through embedding total societal impact into their strategy and operations, which is why we are so pleased to help Givewith expand into the real estate industry,” said Rich Lesser, BCG’s CEO. “This collaboration has the potential to transform communities across the globe, while helping the real estate industry rebound in a post-pandemic world.”
Givewith has also hired Artie Stern as the General Manager of Real Estate Solutions to lead the design, development and implementation of the new product. Mr. Stern is one of the founding members of Cogswell Realty, LLC and previously served as its Chief Executive Officer. During the course of his 30-year career, Mr. Stern has served as a partner, investor, advisor, broker, manager, and project executive for more than $2 billion in real estate.
To learn more about Givewith Social Value Buildings, visit www.scalewith.com/real-estate
About Givewith
Givewith enables companies to drive business growth and stakeholder value by directing funding to environmental and social impact programs through their everyday business transactions. Its suite of digital SaaS solutions tailored for sales, procurement, and real estate generate new sources of funding for the world’s most effective social impact initiatives and precisely measure the outcomes of the funding to translate social impact opportunities into critical business KPIs. To learn more about how Givewith generates shared value for businesses, people and the planet, visit www.scalewith.com.
About Boston Consulting Group
Boston Consulting Group partners with leaders in business and society to tackle their most important challenges and capture their greatest opportunities. BCG was the pioneer in business strategy when it was founded in 1963. Today, we help clients with total transformation—inspiring complex change, enabling organizations to grow, building competitive advantage, and driving bottom-line impact.
To succeed, organizations must blend digital and human capabilities. Our diverse, global teams bring deep industry and functional expertise and a range of perspectives to spark change. BCG delivers solutions through leading-edge management consulting along with
technology and design, corporate and digital ventures—and business purpose. We work in a uniquely collaborative model across the firm and throughout all levels of the client organization, generating results that allow our clients to thrive.