Welcome
Business-Community Synergies (BCS) offers advisory, applied research and training services to establish, strengthen and maintain positive relationships between multinational businesses and the communities where they operate. BCS works with multinational clients to engage with communities in ways that promote sustainable local development.
The Latest
April 2009
Business-Community Synergies (BCS) and the London School of Economics, with sponsorship from the International Finance Corporation's CommDev (Sustainable Community Development Fund for Oil, Gas and Mining) and the Alcoa Foundation, organized a week of training for 30 representatives from civil society organizations from eight different countries. The objective was to build civil society capacities to negotiate more effectively with corporations using BCS's successful methodology to promote sustainable local development.
To download a copy of this press release as a PDF, click here.
January 2009
In January, BCS held an international competition to select the right civil society organizations for an international training program on community-company engagement in the extractive industries. The program is sponsored by the Alcoa Foundation and the Oil, Gas and Mining Sustainable Community Development Fund. The program is scheduled to be held in South Africa, March 30 to April 3, 2009. It will be facilitated by BCS consultants, Rani Parker and Thomas Lent. For more information, please contact MaraGasana@BCSynergies.com.
November 3, 2008
Business-Community Synergies along with The London School of Economics, and CommDev (the Oil, Gas and Mining Sustainable Community Development Fund of the International Finance Corporation), is seeking participants for an international training program in corporate-community engagement in the extractive industries. The program aims to build an international network of civil society organizations that can negotiate effectively with multi-national corporations engaged in extraction of natural resources, so benefits are maximized at the community level.
Candidates must be civil society organizations (may be Southern or Northern), be operating in a country where there is extraction, have legitimacy to convene government, large private companies and civil society in the country where they operate, and have a serious commitment to private sector engagement demonstrated by having it in their organizational mandate. Only organizations, not individuals, are selected. Selected candidates will not have to pay for their participation, but would be expected, with support, to lead a corporate-community engagement initiative in their country of operation. Please use attached application form, which is also available through www.bcsynergies.com or www.lse.ac.uk/communitycapacities.org. For questions, please contact Rani Parker at rparker@BCSynergies.com, James Van Alstine at J.Van-Alstine@lse.ac.uk, or Veronica Nyhan Jones at VNyhanJones@ifc.org.
Download the application here. Download the training document here.
November 7, 2008
Mara Gasana represents BCS at Maryland Governor’s Press Conference on health insurance. Read more.
October 10-14, 2008
James Van-Alstine presents on “Sustainable Synergies: Building Capacities for Community-Company Engagement” at the Advancing Sustainability Conference, Barcelona Spain.
September 2008
BCS is seeking Part-time Research Assistants. Read more.
Where We Give
This fund was created to honor the memory of Koilpillai Parker, father of A. Rani Parker, BCS CEO and chair and president of the Koilpillai Parker Memorial Fund Board of Directors.