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Shared value is a management strategy in which companies find business opportunities in social problems. While philanthropy and CSR focus efforts focus on "giving back" or minimizing the harm business has on society, shared value focuses company leaders on maximizing the competitive value of solving social problems in new customers and markets, cost savings, talent retention, and more.

Heartland Democracy engages directly with Midwestern youth, independent thinkers, centrists, and folks who are uninvolved in their community and politics.  Using shared values and critical issues as the bases and sparks for discussion, Heartland Democracy targets specific participants, institutions, demographic segments, and geographic areas for exchanges in which we weave together a coherent set of values, stories, history, facts, and ideas to reach the emotional factors so decisive in the shaping of mindsets. 

Pioneers in such efforts are sharing their practices on a new website. The Natural Capital Business Hub, launched Wednesday at the 2014 GreenBiz Forum, is a joint effort of The Nature Conservancy and the Corporate EcoForum. It showcases the natural capital efforts of some 40 companies - from Alcoa to Lockheed Martin to YES Bank - representing $1.4 trillion in revenues. Nonprofits involved include BSR, Trucost and World Wildlife Fund (WWF). "There's more going on in this field than people expect, and it's really boomed in the last couple of years," said Michelle Lapinski, senior advisor, Businesses Valuing Nature, at The Nature Conservancy. The hub's core tool is a database of case studies, which you can search by industry, geography, benefit, approach or ecosystem. Supporting articles introduce visitors to the basic concepts of valuing natural capital, with categories offering to help you "make the case, benchmark, implement and connect" your own efforts.

WHAT IF WE BUILT OUR COMMUNITIES AROUND PLACES? As both an overarching idea and a hands-on approach for improving a neighborhood, city, or region, Placemaking inspires people to collectively reimagine and reinvent public spaces as the heart of every community. Strengthening the connection between people and the places they share, Placemaking refers to a collaborative process by which we can shape our public realm in order to maximize shared value. More than just promoting better urban design, Placemaking facilitates creative patterns of use, paying particular attention to the physical, cultural, and social identities that define a place and support its ongoing evolution.

Introducing Future Search NetworkFuture Search Network is a collaboration of hundreds of dedicated volunteers worldwide providing Future Search conferences as a public service. We serve communities, NGO's, and other non-profits for whatever people can afford. Our misson is to help communities everywhere become more open, supportive, equitable and sustainable. We also work with for-profit organizations who share these values, charging standard fees. We are a cross-cultural network, speaking many languages. Our members live in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America.

OuiShare is a global community and think and do-tank. Our mission is to build and nurture a collaborative society by connecting people, organizations and ideas around fairness, openness and trust. We believe that economic, political and social systems based on these values can solve many of the complex challenges the world faces, and enable everyone to access to the resources and opportunities they need to thrive. OuiShare activities consist of building community, producing knowledge and incubating projects around the topics of communities and the collaborative economy, as well as offering support to individuals and organizations through professional services and education. Started in January 2012 in Paris, OuiShare is now an international leader in the collaborative economy field. A non-profit organization which has rapidly evolved from a handful of enthusiasts to a global movement in dozens of countries in Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, our network of expert Connectors engage hundreds of members and contributors worldwide.

The Consilience Project is developing a body of social theory and analysis that explains and seeks solutions to the unique challenges we face today. It focuses on the deeper generator functions beneath the world's major problems, drawing on the best of social theory while showing where existing theories and institutions are no longer adequate to fix the current problem landscape. The aim of the project is to help catalyze a cultural enlightenment that will develop a new set of shared values and capacities adequate to the needs of our time.

We believe knowledge sharing is most valuable when it's powered by people closest to the challenges. We seek to elevate the voices of changemakers who have the greatest insights and the most at stake. Advancing economic, environmental and social justice today requires iteration, openness, adaptability and risk-taking. We embrace these values within our own work and aim to celebrate others who do the same.