The ChamberPost

The Pilot - Learning by Doing

by Bev Dribin

4th post in a series on our journey to create ARAMARK Building Community, the company’s signature community initiative to strength the capacity of the country’s local community centers.

With the "green light" to move forward, it was time to pilot ARAMARK Building Community, our new, branded signature initiative focused on strengthening the capacity of local community centers.  We chose several of our most important business markets – Houston, Chicago and Philadelphia - to demonstrate the power of the concept and to test different program models.  

Holly Montalbano, ARAMARK Vice President of External Affairs in Houston, quickly identified a local community center partner for the first local pilot partnership. "From our first meeting with Neighborhood Centers, Inc. (NCI), we were hopeful that we had found the perfect partner," says Montalbano.  A network of 59 community centers serving more than 200,000 people of all ages, NCI provided the types of services that ARAMARK could contribute to, but more importantly, was committed to forming mutually beneficial public-private partnerships to help those who need it most. 

The ARAMARK team wanted to make it clear that, while we were coming to the table with certain assets and resources, we had no set agenda of what the program would look like. "Our first priority was to understand NCI's needs, particularly in our focus areas – workforce readiness, basic human services and health and wellness – to identify some opportunities for collaboration in our first year," says Montalbano, "The folks at NCI were very willing to jump in with us and figure out together how we would combine forces for the community."

Assistance or Development?

by Stephen Jordan

This week was a tale of two events that underscored a tension many people in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) world face – are we in philanthropy and humanitarian assistance or are we in development?  Are we giving out fish or are we teaching people how to fish?  Are we prioritizing business or society?   How can we do both most effectively?

On Tuesday, I went to New York to attend the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy’s Award Dinner recognizing the work of Western Union, Liquidnet, and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.  Then on Wednesday, I flew down to Raleigh to sit in on the International Association of Science Parks  conference – a highlight of which was IBM Foundation president Stan Litow’s presentation about encouraging science and technology tools for economic development.

When I talk with government and non-profit partners, they tend to want assistance with their agendas.  They tend to begin by asking for assistance with schools or hospitals or refugees or climate change for a particular region or demographic, and then they try to work backwards from the social cause to get to the business case.  “Working on X disease is not just socially responsible; it’s good for workforce productivity.”  “Working on climate change reduces waste and increases energy utilization.”

But if you start with the social cause as the premise, in the minds of many executives, you have crossed over into the land of philanthropy and altruism, which annoys some CSR practitioners to no end.  This is particularly true in the European context, where many people have worked diligently to associate CSR with corporate operations, and not financial support for external causes.

A Perfect Fit – Community Centers

by Bev Dribin

3rd post in a series (see one and two) on our journey to create ARAMARK Building Community, the company’s signature community initiative to strength the capacity of the country’s local community centers.

With firm guideposts in place and a decision made on the issues we wanted to address, we started on partner identification.  We searched for organizations that would be most aligned with ARAMARK’s social issue priorities and goals. 

Our research revealed that there are essential, yet under-recognized and under resourced places in nearly every city where individuals and families go every day for help on a wide variety of needs.  Local independent community centers, also known as “neighborhood centers” or “settlement houses,” address some of the nation’s toughest challenges, especially during difficult economic times.  Whether it is providing food to the hungry, emergency shelter to families that have lost their homes, job training to people looking for better opportunities, or clothing for those fallen on hard times, these centers work to improve their local communities and offer much-needed help to their neighbors. 

Measuring What Matters: City Works Toward Sustainability Goals

by David Fujimoto

Measuring what matters. That's the goal behind a new initiative here at City of Issaquah, which is a 2009 Siemens Sustainable Community program honoree.

Called the "Sustainability Sounding Board," a group of community leaders appointed by Issaquah's mayor, recently unveiled its long-term vision for a sustainable Issaquah, as well as recommendations for how the community can begin to measure its progress toward that goal.

In late 2008, Mayor Ava Frisinger created the board, which includes 16 citizens and representatives from social service organizations, businesses and the environmental community. The board members met four times to develop its final report for the mayor.

Conserving Rainforests in Brazil

by Kristy Adams

From a six passenger plane, I gazed over the rainforest canopy through white clouds and sunlight to see gray rain in the distance not far from where we would soon be landing.  My colleagues and I were speechless at this vision of an endangered landscape.

During the past 40 years, close to 20 percent of the Amazon rainforest has been cut down (National Geographic, 2007).  Without efforts to protect the rainforest, scientists suggest an additional third of Amazon ground cover could be lost by 2050 (Soares-Filho et al, 2006).  Our partner, Conservation International, and other environmental experts also say that the destruction of tropical forests contributes 20 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and fuels climate change.

Recently Marriott International partnered with the Amazonas Sustainable Foundation (Fundação Amazonas Sustentável – FAS) to launch the Spirit to Preserve the Rainforest program.  Conserving rainforests – the lungs of the Earth – is one of the most important things we can do to improve the climate.  Marriott has committed $2 million dollars to support the Juma Reserve, which lies several hundred miles outside of Manaus, one of Brazil’s largest cities and the capital of the state of Amazonas.  In addition to this support, Marriott has created the Spirit to Preserve Group Meetings Promotion which grants 5% of hotel room revenue from group bookings during specified periods to support the reserve and its residents. 

Developing a Signature Program

by Bev Dribin

2nd post in a series on our journey to create ARAMARK Building Community, the company’s signature community initiative to strength the capacity of the country’s local community centers.

Armed with our research on our existing community activities and our decision to create a signature community initiative for ARAMARK, our team began to formulate the program development strategy.  

We started by defining the business goals that our community involvement initiative would need to address.  We summarized them as:

• Strengthen relationships with and actively engage ARAMARK employees. Due to ARAMARK’s structure, this was certainly easier to say than accomplish. With nearly 260,000 employees worldwide, the majority of whom work inside their clients’ locations and feel more closely aligned with their client name and purpose, it is not surprising many employees only felt loosely affiliated with ARAMARK. It was important for the signature program to help instill a sense of unified purpose and pride in our company. 
• Increase awareness and enhance reputation among opinion leaders in local communities. By design, ARAMARK’s services are often "invisible" to the outside world.  When enjoying the carefully maintained grounds of a national park, or ordering lunch at a company cafeteria, few people are aware that those serving them are part of ARAMARK.  Our hope was that the signature initiative could be used strategically to generate awareness of ARAMARK as a leading employer, a desirable business partner, and a contributing member of the community.

Getting Started: ARAMARK Building Community

by Bev Dribin

1st post in a series on our journey to create ARAMARK Building Community, the company’s signature community initiative to strength the capacity of the country’s local community centers.

For over 75 years, community involvement activities at ARAMARK were initiated largely at the grassroots level by service-minded employees who wanted to get involved and support their communities. While ARAMARK is a global company, it is deeply embedded into the communities in which it operates. Community involvement efforts were left to local managers to develop and implement. Without specific direction or infrastructure support around community involvement, activities revolved around suggestions from clients or passionate employees who encouraged support of organizations important to them. With each region and business having its own small, individual community relations projects, over time ARAMARK came to support a myriad of different philanthropic and employee volunteerism activities, touching every type of cause and issue.

This meant there was little awareness of the extent of the community support being committed by ARAMARK overall; and there were missed opportunities to leverage employees’ skills and knowledge, and to build relationships with clients, prospects, and local leaders.

Office Depot Foundation: Leading by Example

by Gerald McSwiggan

On Thursday, May 14, Florida Governor Charlie Crist awarded the Office Depot Foundation the Governor’s Hurricane Conference Corporate Award. The award acknowledges the Office Depot Foundation "for contributing generously to hurricane relief agencies in Florida for 15 years and promoting important new strategies for recovery, rebuilding and mitigation."

There are a couple things to note from this. 

First, the hurricane conference has been an annual event in Florida for the last 23 years.  I have been to a number of conferences in the past few years that were not completely focused on disasters, but had disaster-related breakout sessions.  My experience is that unless there has been a major disaster shortly before the conference, the disaster sessions are not very well intended.  But in Florida, where everyone is fully aware of the hurricane threat, they hold an annual conference to prepare.  This is leading by example. 

The second thing to note is this.  Floridians know a thing or two about disasters, which makes this award to the Office Depot Foundation so impressive.  If they say that Office Depot has been "promoting new strategies for recovery, rebuilding, and mitigation," I think that they know what they are talking about.

Partners Make Earthquake Recovery Program Successful

by John P. Howe, III, M.D.

Project HOPE, in close collaboration with China’s Ministry of Health, officially launched the China Rehabilitation Medicine Program in Beijing on Tuesday (post here). This comprehensive three–year program is addressing the need of rehabilitative services for those recovering from injuries suffered during last year’s earthquake.  At the same time, the program is helping to build rehabilitative care throughout China.

Of course, the comprehensive program would not be possible without the generous support of Project HOPE donors.  While the goal of the program is to bring standardized rehabilitative care to those suffering from earthquake related injuries, the scope of the project which works at the community, city, provincial, and national levels has allowed our donors to get involved at many different levels.

In Search of the Next Big Plan

by Ted Deutsch

It was 100 years ago that Daniel Burnham, Edward Bennett and the Commercial Club of Chicago established the now world renowned "Burnham Plan" for the future growth of Chicago. With that historical backdrop, it was fitting that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce gathered CSR leaders in the windy city to talk about 21st century plans for corporate community investment.

Five Chicago corporate leaders led the day's first panel discussion, addressing the significance of the Burnham Plan's Centennial and contemporary efforts to create public-private partnerships that build on its legacy.

"Make no little plans," was Burnham's original mantra. Paul O'Connor's organization, the Burnham Plan Centennial, echoes that call with its own tagline: "Bold Plans, Big Dreams."  Just as the original plan involved partnership across businesses and government entities, recent projects advancing Chicago have featured similar alliances. Jerry Roper of the Chicagoland Chamber talked about the recent completion of Millennium Park, and the ongoing bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics -- both high profile examples of how companies can mobilize together for the public good. With the leadership of a powerful Mayor Daley (one panelist called him "our benevolent dictator"), the city offers numerous examples of how partnerships can get big things done.