Hill+Knowlton Strategies

By Lauren Wilson, Account Executive, Washington D.C. Office

Washington Women in PR hosted a brown bag luncheon last week at the National Education Association  where Bill Novelli served as guest speaker on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).  Does the communication firm Porter Novelli ring a bell? Bill Novelli founded the agency that bears his name and left the company in the 90s to pursue a slew of non-profit and CSR roles including: Executive Vice President of CARE, President of theCampaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, and CEO of AARP. Currently, Bill is a professor in social responsibility at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business.

Corporate Social Responsibility, the idea of incorporating responsible practices in daily business operations, has emerged as a strong focus over the last few years with companies restructuring their operations and making this practice a top priority.  Through Bill’s role at Georgetown, he discovered that there is a high student demand to learn about CSR and to pursue this work after the completion of their graduate studies.  In fact, many of his students and their peers are willing take pay cuts to work in a CSR role. Bill’s goal is to help students and communications practitioners understand the value of this responsibility so that they can serve in roles that produce social change, which will ultimately lead to the betterment of our society.

One member of the audience asked: How do you move organizations to adopt CSR practices in a down economy?  “It is important to convince your organizations to act socially responsible because that is often the expectation from its constituents and stakeholders. Organizations that have strong CSR campaigns often exude more confidence and uplift employee morale,” Bill responded.

Bill also noted that in this down economy, volunteerism has risen.  According to the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), volunteerism jumped by 1.6 million last year, the largest increase in six years. Over 8.1 billion hours of volunteer service was donated by Americans last year. Corporate Social Responsibility has emerged as a sustainable practice and organizations often have success when they participate in this practice over time.  This audience was very receptive in learning about  Bill’s current role as a CSR enthusiast and many expressed how they felt empowered to challenge their organizations to adopt CSR initiatives. If each organization did their part to implement a CSR program, then the idea of “doing good” would eventually be seen as normal corporate practice.

[Disclosure: Hill and Knowlton represents CNCS]

by Chad Tragakis, Senior Vice President, Hill & Knowlton, Washington

“Business started long centuries before the dawn of history, but business as we now know it is new – new in its broadening scope, new in its social significance.  Business has not learned how to handle these changes, nor does it recognize the magnitude of its responsibilities for the future of civilization.”

        Wallace Donham, Dean of Harvard Business School – 1929

I love this quote.  Sadly, it rings as true today as it did 80 years ago.  Business had not yet learned how to handle the changes that were happening then in terms of the real impact the sector had on society.  And while incredible progress has been made in the decades since Donham’s prophetic observation, it’s clear that business still does not recognize the real power it holds in shaping the future of our planet and its people.  There are great models of responsible, sustainable corporations and glimmers of hope from enlightened enterprises.  But there are too many BPs out there – companies with lots of promise but little execution.

As someone who used to live in the Gulf Coast region and who holds a solemn respect for our natural world, the BP spill—coming to me live via 24/7 spillcam—continues to crush my spirit.  As a communications professional, it continues to astound and amaze me.  There are many important communications, public relations and corporate positioning lessons to be learned from the BP saga (no doubt, detailed analyses and dissections of the event are already appearing en masse in the PR and communications trade journals).  But the longer term story here is that BP’s spill now joins the annals of corporate communications landmark events – the flashpoints in our collective consciousness that create lasting legacies, sometimes good (think Tylenol) but usually bad. 

Every individual has their own mental list – and what’s on it depends a lot on where you live, what you do and when you were born.  For some, the list begins with watershed, game-changing books like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring or Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed.  For others, it is a laundry list of mismanagement, malfeasance and missed opportunity – Barings Bank, Bridgestone/Firestone, Enron, Parmalat, Societe Generale, Toyota, Tyco, WorldCom…  Exxon’s Valdez oil spill ranks high on most of our lists, but for many, the list is topped by Union Carbide’s 1984 gas leak in Bhopal, India.  More on that in a moment. 

Plenty of companies have slow simmering issues and scandals that play out over time, but I’m convinced that the ones that are largely event-driven are more powerful to the human psyche – regardless of their actual impact.  As a result, these legacies live on sometimes for generations.  Some may argue that Prudhoe Bay or the Texas City refinery explosion would already have landed BP a place on the list, especially because of how antithetical those events were to the culture of responsibility and environmental stewardship that the company (through the voice of Lord John Browne) spent a decade building, or at least talking about.  That may be true, but those events—as unfortunate as they were—were nothing compared to the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Some consumers have short memories, but many more do not.  I know people who are still punishing Exxon for the Valdez spill – going out of their way to another service station even if the price is a few cents higher per gallon.  And this brings me back to Bhopal.

Bhopal remains the world’s worst industrial disaster.  It also remains one of the early, principal milestones and demarcation points for when the world woke up to what it should expect of corporations.  And while Bhopal may still top our mental lists, until recently, it was largely a talking point in CSR speeches and a footnote in text books.  Dow, which bought Union Carbide in 1999, has maintained a quiet microsite on the event and resulting settlement, but the tragedy hasn’t been much of an issue for them, at least publicly.  That changed a few weeks ago, when sentences were finally handed down in the long running case.  Although seven former employees of Union Carbide were found guilty of death by negligence, their two year prison sentences have been hailed by survivors and their advocates as a slap in the face, prompting a torrent of fury and protest.  And there are renewed calls for Dow to do more in terms of site remediation and accepting greater responsibility to compensate victims and bring about true justice.

A full 25 years later, and Bhopal is still generating community outrage, criticism from NGO activists and a robust online campaign, pointed media coverage, interest from policy-makers and reputational risk for Dow.

So, if the recent echoes of Bhopal are any indication, it appears that the very actions by which BP hoped to save a little time and a little money are going to cost them plenty more of both.

By Tara Knight, Hill & Knowlton in Vancouver, Cananda

Chad Tragakis highlighted an article for me about the City of Boston deciding to use infrared (the technology in night vision) to scan the city’s buildings to determine how energy efficient the buildings are (article: http://bit.ly/Boston-infrared). Infrared detects the heat signatures of beings or objects. You are likely familiar with infrared’s use in night goggles or if you traveled through those big fever-detecting infrared scanners in popping up in airports during flu epidemics. The technology is tremendously adaptive, and its use is growing for consumers and business especially as a cost-effective, non-invasive process to determine a building’s heat efficiency.

Boston’s Mayor plans to have the infrared scans cover every square foot of Boston, and claims it will be the first of their kind in a major American city. It’s an ambitious goal. Buildings use 40% of the world’s ‘final’ energy according to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. In fact, the Council recently released a report that shows how energy use in buildings can be cut by 60 percent by 2050 – essential to meeting global climate change targets (for those of you who like to challenge your landlord, the Council’s report is available online here.) Of course, this technology is already available to interested organizations and consumers who want to be on top their energy consumption.

However, you don’t have to start big- we all know each of us can take a little action and make a difference. Google has a neat little personal tool – Google powermeter – a free energy monitoring tool to monitor your home’s energy consumption.  According to their blog “one Australian restaurant recently learned that something as easy as turning off their coffee pots each night would save them $3,000 dollars per year.” If every city like Boston and each of us starting tracking our energy use, it’s a safe bet we could save more than that.

by Chad Tragakis, Senior Vice President, Hill & Knowlton, Washington

“What is needed is a better approach to help the poor, an approach that involves partnering with them to innovate and achieve sustainable win-win scenarios where the poor are actively engaged and, at the same time, the companies providing products and services to them are profitable.”

                   C.K. Prahalad – From The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits

I’m often asked – by colleagues, friends, clients and prospective clients – what is the value of CSR?

I am always happy to run through the now well-established list of how different dimensions of a genuine commitment to corporate responsibility can impact the bottom line, directly and indirectly.  From stronger relationships with communities and an enhanced license to operate to increased profitability through operational efficiency gains and materials and resource management, to management of risks and improved relations with the investment community, enhanced employee relations that yield better results and cost savings with respect to recruitment, motivation, retention, learning  and productivity, to improved reputation and branding, and qualification for billions of dollars in screened business, the business value of and return on investment in CSR is increasingly clear.

In addition to these many benefits, some of the world’s largest companies have found that embracing CSR can also provide access to new “aspirational” consumers and new revenue streams in emerging markets, which in turn can foster significant product and business innovation.  Recently, we lost a visionary man who made truly game-changing contributions to the world through his research, observations and recommendations on these aspects of corporate responsibility and global citizenship.  Coimbatore Krishnarao “C.K.” Prahalad died last month after a brief bout with a lung ailment. Sadly, he was only 68.

Born in Chennai India, Prahalad earned degrees from Loyola College in Madras and the Indian Institute of Management, and later a PhD from Harvard Business School.  He would go on to consult for some of the world’s leading multinational corporations in a variety of industries, but he is best know as a distinguished professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, where he pioneered and popularized the “bottom of the pyramid” concept.

While his theory that the world’s poor should be viewed as consumers is more firmly established today, it was still a radical and unorthodox notion even 10 years ago. 

The numbers speak for themselves – 4 to 5 billion underserved people representing more than $13 trillion in purchasing power.

Whether detergent and household products, cement and home building materials, microfinance and financial services products, or cell phones and consumer technology products, Prahalad proved to Fortune 500 companies that they could satisfy market needs, help address social problems, improve the quality of life for millions and make a profit. 

Companies across the business sector – from Unilever to Motorola to CEMEX, among many others – have now embraced Prahalad’s idea of “inclusive capitalism,” and have benefitted through increased sales, tax exemptions, and increased brand awareness.  This last benefit is significant for companies doing business in emerging economies, where it is important to cultivate consumers who may not be able to afford your products today, but who will demand them tomorrow.  Establishing brand preference and loyalty early on can pay huge dividends over a consumer’s lifetime.

And it isn’t always developed countries selling to the poor.  On occasion, innovations in products, services and business models developed in and for emerging markets have applications in established economies, providing still more benefits for enlightened global firms.

C.K. Prahalad was on my mental list of people I would love to meet at a conference or cocktail party some day.  He died too young, and I’m sure he had at least one or two more books left to write, and many more innovative ideas to share with those of us working in the corporate responsibility arena and those in the broader business and public policy communities.  While I’m deeply saddened by his loss, I’m appreciative of the fact that so many around the world are benefitting and will continue to benefit from the ideas and approaches to business and corporate responsibility that he pioneered.  His impact will be long-lasting, his legacy is secured.

by Chad Tragakis, Senior Vice President, Hill & Knowlton, Washington

Recently, I hosted a group of graduate students from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School.  I also spoke to a group of undergraduates at George Mason University.  I was struck by the questions they asked me and their responses to the questions I asked of them.  They wanted to know about the linkages between ethics and business performance; they asked about the risk management dimensions of social and environmental responsibility; and they hold crystal clear points of view on corporate reputation, respect for customers, and the value and impact of strategic philanthropy and employee volunteering.

These interactions reminded me of the numerous survey findings suggesting that young people prefer to work for companies that are socially and environmentally responsible.

§  Research recently conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that 88% of millennials say they will choose to work for companies whose corporate social responsibility values reflect their own. 

§  A survey by Kelly Services found that nearly 90% of respondents say they are more likely to work for a company that is ethically and socially responsible and 80% are more likely to work for a company that is environmentally responsible.  The same survey found that 46% of Generation Y, 48% of Generation X and 53% of Baby Boomers would be willing to forego pay or promotion to work for an organization with a good reputation.

§  A MonsterTRAK.com poll found that 80% of young professionals are interested in jobs that have a positive impact on the environment, and 92% are more inclined to work for an environmentally friendly company.

§  A poll by BT found that a third of those surveyed felt that working for a caring and responsible company was more important than the salary they earned, and 44% said they would discount an employer that did not have a good reputation in terms of social responsibility.

§  Clearly, to land top talent, HR execs should pay heed to all this.  And it doesn’t seem to change once employees are onboard.  A survey by the St. James Ethics Center found that 77% of employees would leave a company if it acted in a way that contradicted their core principles.  The PwC study of millennials found that 86% would consider leaving a company if its CSR values no longer matched their expectations.

In some ways, it’s not surprising that young people have an interest in social and environmental responsibility – after all, they’ve grown up in an age when service-learning is an increasingly common concept in schools.  And they’ve been bombarded (in a good way) with eco-consciousness courtesy of Earth Day, Al Gore, and the green marketing prowess of Madison Avenue.

But is this ethos of responsibility sustained as these young people grow up?  Does the spirit of sustainability stick with them as they enter the workforce and deal with the real-world pressures that come with families and mortgages?  I would like to think so, but I haven’t seen any longitudinal studies that have attempted to test this.  If it is sustained, why?  And how can we apply those learnings to other populations?  If it isn’t, what can we do to recapture and then perpetuate that sensibility as young people grow into adults?  I am hopeful that enlightened sociologists and social psychologists may soon explore the answers to these questions.  Until then, we should find new ways to tap into and harness this interest and optimism.

Incidentally, next week, in conjunction with my company’s volunteer efforts around the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, I’ll be speaking to a group of first graders.  I can’t wait to hear what they have to say!

Treat the Earth well.  It was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. 

Native American Proverb

By Susan Champlain, Vice President, H&K Seattle

Seattle prides itself on its environmental stewardship.  In a city surrounded on the west by Puget Sound and the rugged Olympic Mountains and on the east by Lake Washington, Mt. Rainier and the Cascades, reminders of nature’s treasured resources are everywhere.  Recently named “America’s second least wasteful city” by Nalgene, Seattle is at the center of the green movement. Cycling, recycling and reusable water bottles are a badge of honor here, along with brown lawns in the summertime.

But second place?  To many here, losing to San Francisco is embarrassing and incentive to do better.  Seattle ranked first place in throwing out fewer than two bags of trash each week, thanks to the city’s aggressive composting efforts.  We ranked first in buying bulk food to avoid extra packaging.  And, despite the failure of the city’s bag tax initiative in 2008, we ranked first in using reusable grocery bags.

So where did the city fall short?  Seattle’s lowest ranking was 15^th for hanging clothes out to dry.  We do live in the rainiest corner of the country.  Maybe we should get a pass on that one.

With light rail now up and running, a new state sales tax on bottled water and efforts by our thousands of coffee shops to offer reusable or recyclable cups, San Francisco better look out.  Damp fleece may become a fashion statement. 

By Andrew Cuneo, Senior Account Executive, Washington, D.C.

I had the fortunate opportunity to attend Fortune’s Brainstorm: Green conference in Laguna Niguel, California this week. A number of attendees really wowed the audience, capturing ideas, reasoning and strategies around renewable energy, energy conservation, fossil fuel and electric vehicles.  But one person really stood out in my mind as being the most impressive – William McDonough.  Please see the blog post I wrote for Hill & Knowlton’s technology blog in Washington, D.C. “Tech & the District.”

by Chad Tragakis, Senior Vice President, Hill & Knowlton, Washington

Several years ago, I attended a forum in Washington, DC on supply chain responsibility.  At the time, I was managing corporate social and environmental responsibility communications for two different clients, both with vast, global supply chains.  Supplier responsibility was an area of constant focus and opportunity for these companies.

The forum was a quiet, routine affair as these things go, and polite.  I saw a few participants looking a bit sleepy at the end of one session in particular – where representatives from three Fortune 500 multi-nationals spent the better part of an hour outlining the steps their companies had taken to eliminate child labor from their supply chains (the inspections and audits, on the ground partnerships, tracking and reporting).

Everything changed when, during the Q&A period, a young woman in the audience stood up and posed a question to the panelists.  She worked for a small NGO with operations in India, and noted that many families there desperately rely on the income of all family members – parents, grandparents, and yes, children.  She spoke briefly but compellingly, painting a picture of poverty and need that most in the room couldn’t comprehend.  The panelists look puzzled, and there were murmurs of surprise and disbelief throughout the audience.

I remember being at first repelled by her comments, to being puzzled (can child labor ever be okay?), to being unsure about the whole thing.  In my college sociology classes, I learned to appreciate cultural relativism.  It’s important to value and respect other cultures and their norms, but in my heart, I know that some things (like kids working in factories) are just plain wrong.  This woman, however, had a firsthand perspective and a better informed point of view on the issue of child labor in India than I could claim, so how could I argue with her?

I was reminded of all of this recently when I read an excellent piece by Hasnain Kazim in Spiegel Online.  He writes about the football stitchers of Sialkot in Pakistan, who produce millions of hand-stitched soccer balls each year.  The city has become the world leader in the manufacture of high quality soccer balls, and several companies that export them around the world bring jobs and opportunity to thousands of Sialkot’s people.  Tens of thousands more benefit from this work indirectly through the stability, economic development and related employment that come with the material suppliers, subcontractors, shipping and packaging firms, and the shops, restaurants and other businesses that cater to the workers.

For years, before greater attention was paid to the issue of child labor and before global companies like Nike and Adidas began cracking down on it, children as young as 10 worked in the factories stitching balls together.  In his article, Kazim quotes a stitching center manager who notes that these kids fared reasonably well there, learning a trade that guaranteed them income for life.  Now, the parents of many of these children, desperate for the income that their work can bring, are sending them to toil in the local brickworks and in metalworking factories – places far more dangerous and far more damaging to little bodies than the stitching centers.

As the father of two children under 10, the true cost of child labor is becoming increasingly relatable and ever more disturbing to me.  When I see pictures of children in factories or fields or behind market stalls… it’s difficult to absorb and impossible not to be moved.

The decisions we make—even the obvious and unquestionably good and right ones—have ramifications, good and bad.  And the longer I work in the area of corporate responsibility, the more I see that the principles and policies that once seemed so black and white, are every shade of gray.

In a perfect and just world, 10 year olds should be playing with soccer balls… not making them.  But I am constantly reminded that we don’t live in a perfect world.

A good law gets better

by Chad Tragakis, Senior Vice President, Hill & Knowlton, Washington

The United Nations has declared 2010 to be the International Year of Biodiversity.

There are many definitions for biodiversity, but the one adopted by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity is: “the variability among living organisms from all sources, including, ‘inter alia’, terrestrial, marine, and other aquatic ecosystems, and the ecological complexes of which they are part: this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems”.

Preserving the world’s ecosystems and the web of life they each support is a good and noble goal in and of itself.  But by preserving biodiversity we are really ensuring our own health, safety, economic security, and our very way of life.  So this year, global institutions of all kinds, government agencies, and even corporations are coming together to celebrate the variety of life on planet Earth, and the value and importance it has for us humans. 

From supporting and advancing agriculture, medicine and tourism, to combating climate change, biodiversity has real bottom line benefits for our global society.  If you’ve never seen it, The United Nations Environment Programme issued a great report on the topic, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB).

But how do we make the goal of protecting species and ecosystems real?  How do we preserve biodiversity?  One way is through policies and laws with teeth, and through the rigorous enforcement of those laws.  One such law is the Lacey Act.

Named for Iowa congressman John Lacey (1841–1913), the politician who introduced the conservation measure in 1900, the law made it illegal to transport certain species of game animals, particularly ducks and other waterfowl, across state lines.  By the late nineteenth century, professional market hunters were killing hundreds of thousands of migratory birds to supply the nation’s growing taste for wild duck and to satisfy the millinery industry’s demand for feathers (fashion at the time called for feathers of all shapes, sizes and colors).  The Lacey Act was a direct response to this wanton and unsustainable slaughter.

The Lacey Act was subsequently amended and strengthened several times over the years, but almost 108 years to the day it was signed into law by President William McKinley, it was granted far greater significance.  The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 expanded the scope of plants and plant products protected under the Lacey Act (think: timber, wood and paper).

This change caught many companies off guard, and this past November, in the first major enforcement action of the newly strengthened Lacey Act, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents raided the Nashville, Tennessee facilities of the Gibson Guitar Corporation.  According to various reports, federal agents and local police seized raw wood, guitars, computers and company files – all stemming from allegations that Gibson was in possession of illegally harvested rosewood, a popular hardwood used in crafting guitars.  It’s unclear if the wood itself was a protected species of rosewood, or if the issue was its source, since Madagascar’s forests are home to several species of critically endangered lemurs.

What is perhaps most puzzling about this incident is that Gibson was a recognized leader in responsible sourcing.  They are a major purchaser of Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood, and obtain FSC-chain-of-custody certificates for much, though not all, of their raw material. Like their competitor C. F. Martin & Co., Gibson even launched a series of environmentally-conscious guitars, including the SmartWood Les Paul model.  And Gibson’s chairman and CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, was a member of the board of the Rainforest Alliance (he has since stepped down in the wake of this issue).

Regardless of the ultimate outcome of the investigation for Gibson (and any fines, lawsuits, protests, or boycotts – not to mention lost sales that result), this was a public relations headache that the company did not need.

The World Resources Institute has developed a Lacey Act fact sheet designed to give companies an overview on the expanded law and a primer on compliance and risk.  Business leaders tasked with managing corporate responsibility and sustainability would do well to familiarize themselves with this resource.

The true value and importance of biodiversity is elegantly and succinctly expressed in this ancient proverb, translated from Malagasy, the national language of Madagascar:

Without the forest, there will be no more water, without water, there will be no more rice.

I’m sure the lemurs (not to mention the ducks), would wholeheartedly agree.

by Chad Tragakis, Senior Vice President, Hill & Knowlton, Washington

Our hearts are with Haiti.  The 24-hour news coverage is arresting, but at the same time, it is difficult to watch.  For each glimmer of hope – each miraculous rescue more than a week after the initial earthquake – there is the grim reality of despair, desperation and dire need.

The world is coming together for Haiti, hoping to fill that need.  Individuals, community groups, civic organizations and corporations are displaying levels of interest, compassion and generosity not witnessed since the South Asian Tsunami five years ago.  People are marveling, and rightly so, at the seeming speed and ease with which the Red Cross has received more than $22 million for Haiti relief efforts via text.

That $22 million is indeed amazing, encouraging, and critically important all at once.  One of the most important lessons the world learned from the Tsunami is that cash donations are the best way to help the victims of a disaster, especially in the initial aftermath.  Cash is immediate, it is flexible, and it provides for culturally and geographically appropriate support.  Most importantly, it allows disaster relief organizations to purchase exactly what is needed, and to procure materials near the affected area, which cuts down on transportation time and cost, supports regional economies, and speeds the rebuilding process.

One of my clients, the Center for International Disaster Information, has been tracking and advocating for responsible and appropriate disaster response for more than 20 years.  Over that time, they have witnessed some incredibly insensitive, culturally inappropriate, inefficient, and even harmful responses.  Simply put, when individuals, groups or companies send stuff that is unneeded, supply chains get clogged, boxes must be unloaded and warehoused eating up precious time, personnel and storage space.  Haiti is a powerful case in point for this, as there are extremely limited points of entry for the critical relief supplies being brought in by experienced agencies.

Worse still, many people send items apparently without any thought.  Believe it or not, people have sent winter coats to disaster victims in tropical climates; companies have sent stale cookies and long-expired medicines; canned ham has been shipped to predominantly Muslim countries and canned beef to predominantly Hindu areas; in one shipment of donated supplies, a relief agency found used tea bags; party decorations were mailed to disaster victims who had just lost their homes.  And, in perhaps the worst instance of inappropriate disaster response ever, one company sent a shipment of breast implants.  However well-intentioned, it often seems that some companies and organizations don’t take into account the full impact of their donations.  They are in such a rush to act, that they forget – or just plain fail – to think.

That’s why in the midst of this tragedy, I am encouraged by the thoughtfulness and innovativeness of corporate response, not to mention the sheer volume of companies expressing an interest in helping.  Some companies, because of their unique capabilities, core competencies, knowledge and expertise, and product and service offerings, are in great positions to bring those things to bear after a disaster.  This is especially true when they establish long-term relationships with relief organizations, and invest in preparedness and contingency planning.  Think of the logistics and transportation know-how of Fed-Ex, UPS and DHL – or Motorola or Qualcomm’s ability to restore and operate critical communications infrastructure for first responders.  In the past week alone, I have read about and learned of some truly responsible and wholly appropriate ways for companies to do their part for the people of Haiti.

§  First and foremost, companies are giving cash – lots of cash – and they are directing it to the experienced, credible relief agencies that are already on the ground, the ones in the best position to help and to help quickly.  For example, the Avon Foundation’s $1 million donation is being split evenly between the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders.  Donations tied to Avon’s product sales are also being planned.  Many companies, including Morgan Stanley, which is also donating $1 million, are actively encouraging employee giving through matching and incentive programs.

§  Western Union is waiving all fees to wire money from the U.S. to Haiti for a full week; MoneyGram International is making a similar concession.

§  Royal Caribbean Cruise Ships operates a private beach on Haiti’s northern coast, and while this is far from the center of devastation in Port-au-Prince, the revenue it generates is critical to Haiti’s economy, and will be vital to the country’s recovery.  For this reason, the ship line has decided to resume and maintain calls on Haiti.  In addition, company ships are helping to transport relief supplies and personnel.

§  Timberland is redirecting funds that were earmarked for a reforestation project on Haiti to basic humanitarian relief efforts.

§  While Abbott, McKesson Corporation and UPS are making significant cash contributions, they are also making in-kind donations of products and services specifically requested by relief organizations already on the ground, including the Red Cross, World Vision, Direct Relief International, CARE and UNICEF.

§  Apparel retailer TJX Corporation (T.J. Maxx, Marshalls) is in a unique position to provide clothing to families that have lost everything, but first, they are donating cash to the Red Cross.  They are waiting for more details on what, specifically, is needed, where and by whom in terms of their planned in-kind donation.

§  Target and Wal-Mart have each made $500,000 donations to the Red Cross, but owing to their unique core competencies, they are also providing foodstuffs to be delivered in close coordination with relief agencies on the ground.

§  The nation’s wireless companies – AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon – are waiving standard text-messaging fees for their subscribers’ donations to the Red Cross.  No doubt, this is helping to drive that $22 million.  More than that, they are transmitting the funds to the Red Cross in advance of collecting them via their customers’ monthly bills.

§  My own company, in addition to making financial contributions to the Red Cross and Water.org’s Haiti relief fund, is making information and resources available to all employees offering assistance locating family members in Haiti, tips on how best to contribute to relief efforts, guidelines for talking to children following natural disasters, and tips for coping with traumatic events.

There are many other great examples of companies not only doing the right thing, but responding in the right way.  The bottom line is that sending cash donations is the very best way to help the people of Haiti, especially right now.  CIDI and the State Department are directing people and organizations interested in helping to InterAction, a large coalition of U.S.-based international non-governmental organizations. 

Haiti has a rich history and an equally rich culture.  The country’s flag includes the motto (in French), Strength through Unity.  That will serve as a fitting national mantra in the difficult months and years ahead.  In the center of the flag, is a palm tree – strong and tall, fresh and full of life.  The world will watch and pray as the people of Haiti work to get through this epic challenge.  Let us hope that they re-emerge from this tragedy as a stronger nation – and like the tall tree on their flag, proud and full of life.