Philanthropy
Winston
Churchill once said that “we make a living by what we get, but we
make a life by what we give.” That being the case, it is heartening
during this holiday season to examine the quality of life that the
business community hopes to create for North Carolina’s children
and, by extension, the society we are fostering for ourselves. As in
most such explorations you can best discover the truth by following
the money, which writer Lisa Towle does in this month’s cover story
on corporate philanthropy.
When we first began tracking this story a few years ago we discovered
that businesses were becoming increasingly uncomfortable with
checkbook charity. In those days someone from a worthy cause came
calling and usually left with a sizable donation. That made the CEO
feel good, it made for a nice press release and many deserving
recipients undoubtedly benefited. But business leaders began sensing
that a more focused approach to philanthropy would have a greater
impact on their communities. And they quickly concluded that
supporting education delivered the biggest bang for the buck.
In her story, which begins on page 46, Towle quotes Duke Energy CEO
Richard Priory as saying businesses were simply acting out of their
own enlightened self interest when they started giving money to the
schools because doing so was an investment in a future workforce.
“The widening divide between desired and available skills is having
a real and unwelcome effect on our economy as a whole. I strongly
believe that the business community has a key role in improving the
quality of education,” he says.
But Towle reports that businesses now are taking another step forward
in their philosophy of philanthropy. They’re investing not
only their money but also their time and talent in the schools. As the
Bank of America Foundation’s Rai Glover tells Towle, “We are
moving away from capital campaigns and operating support to program
support. It’s program support that has the most impact on
communities.”
Towle found so many examples of this deeply-layered corporate support
for education that, because of space limitations, we unfortunately had
to limit her to a few representative examples. Among the 10 case
studies she presents is IBM’s Reinventing Education grant program,
the one that a noted Harvard Business School professor has proclaimed
“the new paradigm for corporate philanthropy.” Pictured on the
cover of this issue is one manifestation of that program, KidSmart,
which seeks to ease the digital divide by sending computers into
preschools.
The essayist Jeffrey K. Wilson said “giving pays the highest
interest rate, and has the longest term, of any investment
available.” Business leaders in North Carolina obviously understand
the bottom line of that argument. -- Steve Tuttle
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