Guiding a Merger Through Strategy & Social Responsibility
- Kendra Stoll
- Oct 17, 2024
- 1 min read

JobsOhio Beverage System (JOBS) was acquired in 2013 from the state of Ohio. Ohio Liquor (OHLQ) is a partnership between JOBS and the Division of Liquor Control (DLC). In this partnership, JOBS supplies products for OHLQ but also owns the profits from the sale of all high-proof liquor in the state by OHLQ. Additionally, JobsOhio receives profits from JOBS to provide stable and dedicated funding for economic development throughout Ohio.
Our project with these partners focused on two major deliverables:
First, we needed to create a corporate social responsibility rubric.
Second, we also needed to create a strategic plan for the organization.
The project began with an initial market assessment that allowed us to conduct background research, identify key environmental influences, and analyze peer/aspirant organizations. After completing the market analysis, Bridge Builder Strategies moved to conducting social impact research that would help us build the responsibility rubric.
While doing this research, we identified trends and best practices, identified key components of an SI rubric, and conducted stakeholder interviews. We then synthesized these learnings to create a draft of what the social responsibility rubric could look like. From here, our next step was to complete an organizational analysis that examined current SI activities and identified guardrails. Having completed the organizational analysis, Bridge Builder Strategies then moved to creating the final corporate responsibility rubric. We used this rubric, along with our combined analysis of the interviews, market, and organizational analyses, to inform the strategic plan that we developed.