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Regular thoughts on the human condition and corporate social responsibility by the CEO of a "for-benefit"company.

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  • A great moment in the history of race relations

    Our company is celebrating "Diversity Week" this week with a host of activities and educational encounters. Today, one of our youn guys, Dan Baum, wrote the following note to all our staff. It's terrific and I wanted to share it with you: "Hi everybody, Today, while Angela, Alexi, Denise, Chris and John go visit the new Greensboro Museum, I want to remind you all to sign up for the pot luck on Friday and share with you the story of the South’s first integrated college basketball game, known now as the “Secret Game.” North Carolina is college basketball country, so it’s fitting that the South’s first integrated game would take place here. In 1944, the NCCU basketball team made...
  • Can a company change the world?

    I've been blogging on and off for about a year and I'll be posting more regularly in the future, which is either good or bad, depending on your world view. I've had a lot to say about the role of for-profit companies in today's communities and it occurred to me that readers of this blog have no real idea of how the company I work for operates. In other words, do I walk the talk? I know a good writer who has a blog about sustainable workplaces who recently posted some pretty cool stuff about our company -- The Redwoods Group -- and I thought it might frame some of my views for you. If it sounds like a commercial, I apologize. To be honest, virtually everyone who advises me about...
  • Forty years later, Bobby Kennedy still speaks the truth

    This whole week, the folks in my office are working together to learn about freedom and history and, more specifically, civil rights and racism. Many served in the community with colleagues and family members yesterday on Martin Luther King Day -- "a day on, not a day off", as it has appropriately come to be interpreted. Today, the whole office, led by a 22 year old and prepared by a series of readings, participated in an overview of the civil rights movement and a discussion of race relations in today's world. Tomorrow, at the company's expense, a few of our folks will head to Memphis to the National Civil Rights Museum. On Thursday, those folks will lead another discussion...
  • Pay attention to Congo

    In the last couple of years, encouraged by an unending stream of celebrities, we finally began to respond to the horrific human catastrophe in Darfur. Apparently, the murders of as many as 500,000 people, countless rapes and some 2.5 million refugees was enough for even the US to pronouce the situation a "genocide." Now, the worst of it appears to be over, thank God. Unfortunately, those numbers don't appear to create a "benchmark" for global response. At the very same time, and even as I write this, the situation on the ground is worse, much worse, in Congo. According to a report today in the Chicago Tribune, the violence, disease and starvation accompanying the ongoing...
  • Serving Homeless Veterans

    I met a man recently whose work inspired me. He is Phillip Mangano, Executive Director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness -- the senior US Federal official on homelessness. Coordinating the efforts of some 2 dozen governmental agencies and working tirelessly with local and state governments and private organizations, Phillip has brought a new orientation to our unified approach to homelessness. "A blanket and a bowl of soup is not what these people need. They need a permanent place to live," he says. "Let's not manage the problem of homelessness, let's end it." Before his appointment by President Bush, Phillip had great success working in the...

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"Of those to whom much is given, much also is expected." Growing up, there was probably not a day that I didn't hear those words from my mom or dad. As an adult in our me-first society, we don't hear often enough about our responsibility to share our many blessings with those who are less fortunate. All of us -- as individuals, as families and as companies -- can do more, much more to ensure that all God's children have safe and adequate access to shelter, nutrition, health care, education, economic opportunity and a sustainable environment. My hope is that this blog will offer a forum for robust and civil discourse on how we might work together to heal the world.
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