Nonprofit News and Comment

CORPORATE PHILANTHROPY & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

“Mystery company the largest corporate donor of 2012: Overall, 150 people, businesses, unions and other organizations gave $1 million or more to super PACs.” By Fredreka Schouten and Christopher Schnaars. USA Today. December 12, 2012. A company created less than two months before Election Day was the largest corporate donor of the 2012 elections and remains shrouded in mystery weeks later. The company, Specialty Group Inc., operated by Knoxville attorney William Rose, donated nearly $10.6 million to a Tea Party-affiliated super PAC in the campaign’s final weeks as the group blistered candidates across the country with attack ads, new campaign reports show. In late October, Kingston Pike Development, another company affiliated with Rose, donated $1.5 million to the same super PAC, FreedomWorks for America. Overall, 150 people, businesses, unions and other organizations gave $1 million or more to super PACs to influence the elections, totaling $518 million, a USA TODAY analysis found. Despite dire warnings from watchdog groups that the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision would unleash a wave of corporate money in elections, however, relatively few corporations donated to super PACs. A USA TODAY tally shows 22 for-profit and non-profit corporate entities hit the $1 million-donation mark. Together, they donated $49.6 million, or roughly 10% of the mega donations tracked by USA TODAY. All donated to Republican-affiliated groups.

CORPORATE PHILANTHROPY & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

“UPS Halts Boy Scouts Donations Over Anti-Gay Policy.” Huffington Post. November 13, 2012. [For story, go to Youth Serving Groups].

CORPORATE PHILANTHROPY & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

“Liberty Mutual will up charitable giving; The company is increasing local contributions by 20 percent this year, while other financial services firms plan to keep their giving largely unchanged.” By Todd Wallack. Boston Globe. September 5, 2012. Liberty Mutual, already one of the largest supporters of nonprofits and community groups in the Boston area, said it will significantly increase its charitable giving in Massachusetts this year, outpacing many other major financial services firms in the region. Liberty, the sole Fortune 100 company based in Boston, said it will increase its local donations by about 20 percent to $17 million from $14.2 million last year. Several other firms with large operations here, such as Bank of America and John Hancock Financial Services, said they will keep their local charitable giving at about the same levels as 2011.
A key reason for Liberty Mutual’s increase in local contributions is the renewal of its sponsorship of the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular with a three-year, $8 million deal. The company also donated $1 million in the form of nonprofit grants and sponsorships, such as one for a series of public concerts in Boston, to promote the company’s 100th anniversary this year. Finally, Liberty Mutual increased the size of its annual philanthropic budget, which supports more than 150 nonprofits a year, by $1 million to $8.6 million. “We care deeply about the community,” said Melissa MacDonnell, director of Liberty Mutual’s philanthropy programs. “We were born here 100 years ago, and we’ve grown to become an international company in 27 countries.” In Massachusetts, many of the biggest corporate donors have long been financial institutions like banks, insurance companies, and asset managers. Bank of America, the largest retail bank in the state, said it plans to give $12 million to local nonprofits, the same amount it has given in previous years.

CORPORATE GIVING & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

“How Google turned evil (Apple and Facebook aren’t much better); Don’t be fooled. The tech firms that run our lives are not as virtuous as they claim.” By John Arlidge. Sunday Times (UK). June 17, 2012. In sunny places with bucolic names such as Mountain View and Menlo Park, the glistening headquarters of Google, Facebook and Apple seem to sweep you up off the pavement with the promise of a glimpse into the future — and a good time. As the firms’ youthful bosses arrive each morning at their eco-friendly offices in their T-shirts and trainers, they like to imagine they are a cut above conventional business leaders. Google’s mission statement is “Don’t be evil” and its founders, Larry Page, 39, and Sergey Brin, 38, say they want to make the world a better place. Facebook’s freshly minted billionaire boss, Mark Zuckerberg, 28, claims he is dedicated to “openness, connecting and sharing”. Before his death last year Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, said: “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter. Saying we’ve done something wonderful, that’s what matters.” The shine is coming off Silicon Valley’s finest, however. It has emerged that Google programmed the vehicles to gather private data, including email, web searches and photographs, from unsecured home wi-fi networks. It also stands accused of trying to cover up what it had been doing. European Union regulators are examining claims that Google is abusing its dominance in the search business by ranking its own products higher up in results than those of its rivals. A similar case in the 1990s tarnished the reputation and hit the profits of Microsoft, then the world’s most fearsome tech behemoth. The latest moves come as Apple faces criticism over its plans, revealed last week by The Sunday Times, for an answer to Street View: an even more intrusive 3-D service using military-grade aerial camera satellites capable of revealing objects as small as 4in across. Facebook is having a torrid time, too. Shares in the world’s most successful social network have fallen sharply since it floated on the Nasdaq in New York last month. To add to its woes, figures released last week showed its hitherto phenomenal growth is beginning to slow: in April, its site had 158m unique users, up only 5% on a year earlier, according to the research firm comScore — the lowest rise since it began tracking the data in 2008. The recent setbacks mean the bosses of the big tech firms will spend a lot less time talking to their flipflop-wearing staff this summer and a lot more time talking to buttoned- up lawyers.

“Letting the Mission Govern a Company.” By Dov Seidman. New York Times. June 23, 2012. Three years ago, in front of my 300 colleagues at LRN, I ripped up our organizational chart and proclaimed that none of us would report to a boss anymore. From that point on, we would all “report” to our company mission. Literally. No one would experience life at LRN as someone else’s subordinate. In short, we would strive to become a self-governing company. LRN works with companies to inspire principled performance in their operations. Before that day, we had long worked to become a flat organization. We had never governed behavior exclusively with policies and procedures. And we had rejected performance evaluations based only on numerical outcomes, recognizing that colleagues’ methods and behavior also count. Despite some real progress, though, most of us had begun to feel that we still had a long way to go. We came to realize that self-governance is not only about becoming “flatter.” It is not about a chief executive “empowering” employees or exhorting people to “think outside the box.” Empowering employees only reinforces power — a temporary gift bestowed from on high — as the most important source of authority. And thinking outside the box leaves organizational boxes in place rather than removing them entirely. That’s why 20 LRN teams from around the globe spent six months imagining what a self-governing organization would look like. Our effort to become self-governing has been enlightening, frustrating, nerve-racking, authentic and urgent. It remains a work in progress. We are still striving, for example, to create more clarity in the absence of formal titles. Our mission remains to advance our experiment and help other organizations to embrace this concept as a key to long-term success and significance

CORPORATE GIVING & RESPONSIBILITY

“Why Not Venture-Capital Philanthropy? The U.S. Treasury wants to greenlight charities’ investments in commercial start-ups.” By Robert C. Pozen. Wall Street Journal. June 3, 2012. Some of our brightest, most innovative thinkers are at start-up companies. But these companies often have a hard time raising capital. Venture-capital firms have become more cautious, unwilling to fund start-ups that have bright ideas but whose products are a long way from commercial viability. Venture capitalists consider such start-ups—such as early-stage biotech firms—too risky to justify their investment. Charitable organizations can now step up and help. The U.S. Treasury Department has recently issued a proposal to clarify that foundations may buy stock or make loans to a commercial venture if its activities promote its charitable objectives. Legal uncertainties surrounding such investments had previously held back the risk-averse trustees at many charities. And so, instead of making a $500,000 grant to a university, an Alzheimer’s foundation could buy $100,000 of stock in each of five private companies trying to find a therapy for Alzheimer’s. Or a foundation dedicated to improving financial access for the poor could make $100,000 low-interest loans to five microfinance banks in different countries. Both of these investments would be permissible for a foundation as so-called program-related investments, or PRIs. Foundations have traditionally fostered research through grants to universities and other nonprofit institutions. They will continue to do so, because many of our best minds work in the academy on basic research.

“Crovitz: Keeping the Spirit of Steve Jobs Alive; Thanks to Washington, the liberal politics of Silicon Valley may now be tilting toward the libertarian right.” By L Gordon Crovitz. Wall Street Journal. June 3, 2012. It takes a lot for Silicon Valley to see the glass half empty. Not even the sharp drop in Facebook’s share price or the passing of Apple visionary Steve Jobs suppresses the optimism of technology entrepreneurs. Yet Washington is making it harder even for growth industries to see the glass half full. That’s a big take-away of last week’s All Things D conference, which for 10 years has been the best way to measure the mood of Silicon Valley. The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher grilled top CEOs in front of hundreds of technology executives and entrepreneurs, but the most telling moment came at the end of an otherwise cheery 112-slide presentation by Mary Meeker, a longtime technology analyst at Morgan Stanley now with the Kleiner Perkins venture-capital firm. Ms. Meeker’s closely followed annual assessment of Internet trends featured continuing innovation: Mobile will soon overtake desktop computing, Apple will generate more revenues from China than the U.S., and Facebook managed to deliver 17 million new users to one start-up in just seven days. She affirmed that everything from education to health care will be re-imagined using digital tools. But these advances could be undermined by the underperformance of what Ms. Meeker calls “USA, Inc.” The country has the biggest peacetime gap between revenues and expenses, with entitlement spending swamping everything else. “What gives me pause is that when we were born, 85% of households paid federal income taxes. Now only 49% do,” she pointed out. “Soon more people will receive government aid than pay taxes. That scares me a lot.” Ms. Meeker was not the only one complaining about Washington. The politics of Silicon Valley has been liberal in recent years, but it may now be tilting toward the libertarian right.

CORPORATE PHILANTHROPY & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

“Charitable brokerage to bow on UWS; Fifteen-month-old Rubicon Property picks Columbus Avenue for site of its first storefront, but don’t look for listings and photos in the window. Modern, vivid and bright are in.” By Amanda Fung. Crain’s New York Business. December 22, 2011. Rubicon Property, a 15-month-old residential brokerage firm with a philanthropic twist, will open its first storefront office in February. The brokerage will take roughly 500 square feet of ground-floor retail space at 451 Columbus Ave., a residential building between West 81st and West 82nd streets. Rubicon will join a host of other residential brokerages, including Halstead Property and Bellmarc Realty, with storefronts in the area. “It’s the perfect location to plant our first flag,” said Jason Haber, co-founder of Rubicon, which donates a portion of its commissions to a nonprofit called charity:water, which digs wells to bring clean drinking water to people in developing nations. “This will be the first of a series of storefronts we hope to open as we grow the company.” Despite recent reports suggesting that residential brokerage storefronts are becoming increasingly irrelevant to attracting business, Mr. Haber insisted they are essential to the business as long as they are not, as he put it, “predictable, stodgy and furnished in the 1980s.” In contrast, Mr. Haber said his firm’s new storefront will have no property photos and listings in its window, but will be “very modern, vivid and bright.” More importantly, he noted that he expects it to be a “revenue generator.” As evidence of the power of face-to-face connections, he pointed to the success the firm has had at closing deals with buyers met in person at townhouse open houses. Launched in September 2010, Rubicon has grown to 14 agents and $40 million in active residential listings, compared with $900,000 at the start of this year. Its new storefront will be fully operational by the spring of 2012.

“Revolution through Banking?” By Carne Ross. The Nation. December 22, 2011. It has been clear for some time that the conduct of the banking and financial industry is one very important cause of the 2008 credit crunch. Moreover, for-profit banks by and large fail to deliver services to the poor, deepening poor people’s marginalization from the mainstream economy. The banks relentless pursuit of profit, an intrinsic feature of the industry (as of the broader economy), continues to expose all of us to the risk of another banking crisis which would repeat the enormous harm done last time, above all to the world’s poorest. Sadly, it’s unrealistic to expect Washington to do much to curb the industry, given the banks’ enormous lobbying sway and privileged access to senior officials, regardless which party is in power. It’s no surprise then that the banks have been an important focus of discussion in the Occupy Wall Street movement. And a new approach to banking may become one of the important ways that Occupy moves forward and starts producing material change. One evening in Zuccotti Park, I somewhat rashly, and without much forethought, stood up and announced that I wanted to set up a working group to explore alternative systems of banking. I did not have a clear plan but felt that we had to get to the heart of the problem. If we could change banking and make it embody the values of Occupy—equality, transparency, democracy—we might not only change the financial industry for the better, but also change the very nature of the economy—and thus society itself. Other members of the group share this ambition. Those who have joined the group represent an extraordinary and eclectic mix. There are army vets and unemployed students, but also a large number of financial experts: former derivative traders, SEC regulators, bankers, financial analysts and bloggers and even a professor of financial law. We have no shortage of expertise, and no shortage of determination either. Over the last several weeks, we have been examining what legislative changes are needed to reform the banking sector: some day soon there may be Occupy-originated proposals and draft legislation, for instance to amend the so-called “Volcker Rule”. One group has split off to explore and design the creation of an ideal bank that would put into practice the values of Occupy. What would this look like?

CORPORATE PHILANTHROPY & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
“Banks’ donations fill charities’ coffers; Despite slow times, financial institutions give more to programs in low-income areas.” By Judith Messina Crain’s New York Business. December 11, 2011. New York City Outward Bound, which runs 10 public schools here that teach survival skills similar to those the program focuses on in its more rugged locations, was facing a precarious time. Since 2003, the schools have received $8 million from the Gates Foundation for startup and training costs, but that money was running out. To keep the program going, Outward Bound needed another $250,000 annually per school. Thanks to the city’s financial institutions, that money is now in the bank. Many increased their contributions knowing that the Gates grant was winding down. For the 2010-11 school year, in fact, Outward Bound has received 33% more support from Wall Street than it got two years ago. Banks may not be making many loans or writing a lot of mortgages these days, but a handful of financial institutions have seriously stepped up their philanthropic giving in the face of the persistent economic malaise. JPMorgan Chase last year gave $185 million to charitable causes, or 77% more than the year before, while Citibank handed out $110 million, up 16%. Wells Fargo increased its philanthropy by 8.5%, to $219 million, and philanthropic giving by Goldman Sachs and its partners was up 353% in 2010, to a whopping $315 million, despite a drop in profits last year. The money is going to programs to support low-income communities and to help consumers who have been battered by the recession and its aftermath of job loss and underwater mortgages. Banks are funding financial literacy programs and food banks, helping consumers repair their credit, underwriting innovation in public schools and mentoring women and small businesses. Much of the largesse is aimed at bolstering the neighborhoods where banks do business—and, of course, their brands and reputations. Indeed, some more cynical observers attribute the banks’ generosity to the need to build favor in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse and, more recently, to public pressure from the likes of Occupy Wall Street.

“Google gives $40 million to bolster education. limit slavery and make technology more available.” By Steve Johnson. San Jose Mercury-News. December 14, 2011. In its biggest single-day contribution ever, Google (GOOG) on Wednesday announced it has handed out $40 million to battle slavery, promote education and make technology more accessible worldwide, with nearly a fourth of the money going to Bay Area organizations. “The causes we are supporting are issues we’ve been committed to for a long time, particularly education,” said company spokeswoman Kate Hurowitz, noting that about $9 million is being awarded to a dozen Bay Area groups. “It’s really something the company cares a lot about from the top level.” Altogether, she said, the search giant has contributed $115 million this year.”

“A Manifesto for Sustainable Capitalism; How businesses can embrace environmental, social and governance metrics.” By Al Gore and David Blood. Op-ed. Wall Street Journal. December 14, 2011. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, when the United States was preparing its visionary plan for nurturing democratic capitalism abroad, Gen. Omar Bradley said, “It is time to steer by the stars, and not by the lights of each passing ship.” Today, more than 60 years later, that means abandoning short-term economic thinking for “sustainable capitalism.” We are once again facing one of those rare turning points in history when dangerous challenges and limitless opportunities cry out for clear, long-term thinking. The disruptive threats now facing the planet are extraordinary: climate change, water scarcity, poverty, disease, growing income inequality, urbanization, massive economic volatility and more. Businesses cannot be asked to do the job of governments, but companies and investors will ultimately mobilize most of the capital needed to overcome the unprecedented challenges we now face. Before the crisis and since, we and others have called for a more responsible form of capitalism, what we call sustainable capitalism: a framework that seeks to maximize long-term economic value by reforming markets to address real needs while integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics throughout the decision-making process. Such sustainable capitalism applies to the entire investment value chain—from entrepreneurial ventures to large public companies, seed-capital providers to institutional investors, employees to CEOs, activists to policy makers. It transcends borders, industries, asset classes and stakeholders.

“Google gives $40 million to bolster education. limit slavery and make technology more available.” By Steve Johnson. San Jose Mercury-News. December 14, 2011. In its biggest single-day contribution ever, Google (GOOG) on Wednesday announced it has handed out $40 million to battle slavery, promote education and make technology more accessible worldwide, with nearly a fourth of the money going to Bay Area organizations. “The causes we are supporting are issues we’ve been committed to for a long time, particularly education,” said company spokeswoman Kate Hurowitz, noting that about $9 million is being awarded to a dozen Bay Area groups. “It’s really something the company cares a lot about from the top level.” Altogether, she said, the search giant has contributed $115 million this year.

CORPORATE PHILANTHROPY & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

“First Niagara Pledges $7M Through NAACP.” By Thomas MacMillan. New Haven Independent (http://www.newhavenindependent.org). December 8, 2011. The check represents First Niagara’s investment in several programs—from housing assistance to small business loans—designed to support people in low-income areas of New Haven. Rawlings and First Niagara officials announced the investment and laid out the way the two organizations are working together at a Thursday morning press conference at the Whalley Avenue headquarters of the Greater New Haven branch of the NAACP. In a controversial move, First Niagara took over New Alliance bank this spring, marking the end of New Haven’s hometown bank. As soon as the news of the planned merger broke last summer, Rawlings contacted First Niagara to talk about what the deal would mean for New Haven neighborhoods, said Frank Polino, an executive vice president at First Niagara. First Niagara eventually pledged $1 billion in Community Reinvestment Act lending statewide during its first five years in Connecticut. The $7 million novelty check presented Thursday is part of that pledge. The NAACP won’t actually receive a real version of that check. Rather, it represents the money the bank promises to invest in the city. (Another $500,000 not represented by the check is going to Gateway Community College.) “We take our role as a corporate citizen seriously,” Polino said.