CEO’s & Social Change

Will CEO’s save society?

January 21, 2019

[Full page ad placed in the Washington Post over the weekend.]

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The Delta Airlines Foundation provides a grant to open Atlanta’s Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park for the MLK holiday since the government shutdown.

“Without the assistance provided by The Delta Air Lines Foundation, it would have remained closed during the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.”

The reopening comes as the civil rights leader’s family and fans celebrate what would have been King’s 90th birthday. And because of the grant, those celebrations and remembrances can now include visits to the home where King was born and his longtime church.

The 35-acre park, which draws more than 670,000 visitors to Atlanta’s Sweet Auburn neighborhood each year, reopened Saturday. With an $83,500 grant from Delta and money from National Park Service recreation fees, it now has enough funds to operate until Feb. 3.

The contributions are coming from businesses, groups and states. New York is paying to operate the Statue of Liberty National Monument, for instance, and Utah’s tourism office is paying to keep visitor services running at the Arches, Bryce Canyon, and Zion national parks. And in Yellowstone National Park, snowy roads are being groomed thanks to money from Xanterra Parks & Resorts.

https://www.npr.org/2019/01/21/687103456/martin-luther-king-jr-national-park-reopens-for-holiday-thanks-to-a-private-gran

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Patagonia’s Action Works

For almost 40 years, Patagonia has supported grassroots activists working to find solutions to the environmental crisis. But in this time of unprecedented threats, it’s often hard to know the best way to get involved. That’s why we’re connecting individuals with our grantees, to take action on the most pressing issues facing the world today. We built Patagonia Action Works to connect committed individuals to organizations working on environmental issues in the same community. It’s now possible for anyone to discover and connect with environmental action groups and get involved with the work they do.

Learn more at: patagonia.com/actionworks

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AXIOS

There’s more pressure on CEOs than ever to address complicated issues facing society, and those that don’t embrace the opportunity could find themselves dealing with frustrated employees and customers.

  • A loss of trust in traditional leaders, like government officials and journalists, is pushing people to develop more trusted relationships at work and with their employers, according to Edelman’s 2019 Trust Barometer survey.

  • Why it matters: This crucial shift in the employee-employer relationship creates new opportunities for CEOs and corporate executives to rebuild societal trust. But it also puts an enormous responsibility on them to address complicated issues, from civic inequality to gun control.

Over three fourths (76%) of the respondents from the latest edition of Edelman’s annual Trust Barometer survey say CEOs should take the lead on change rather than waiting for government to impose it, up 11 points from last year.

  • A majority think CEOs can create positive change in issues like equal pay, prejudice and discrimination, training for the jobs of tomorrow and the environment.

  • Nearly three fourths (71%) of employees agree that it’s critically important for their CEO to respond to challenges, like industry issues (how automation will change jobs), political events (how elections will impact companies), and national crises.

Specific tactics can help CEOs rebuild trust, the study says:

  • Leading change at the local level by solving problems in the communities in which they operate.

  • Enlisting employees to have a voice regarding certain issues and empowering them to use it.

  • Showing commitment to issues inside and outside the organization through philanthropy or workplace trainings.

The 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals that trust has changed profoundly in the past year—people have shifted their trust to the relationships within their control, most notably their employers. Globally, 75 percent of people trust “my employer” to do what is right, significantly more than NGOs (57 percent), business (56 percent) and media (47 percent).

Despite the divergence in trust between the informed public and mass population the world is united on one front—all share an urgent desire for change. Only one in five feels that the system is working for them, with nearly half of the mass population believing that the system is failing them.

In conjunction with pessimism and worry, there is a growing move toward engagement and action. In 2019, engagement with the news surged by 22 points; 40 percent not only consume news once a week or more, but they also routinely amplify it. But people are encountering roadblocks in their quest for facts, with 73 percent worried about fake news being used as a weapon.

https://www.edelman.com/trust-barometer?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top

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