Conference Presentation, Panel, Fireside Chat
Strengthening Communities: Corporate Philanthropy, Social Capital, & Resilience | Global Conference
Milken InstituteMelissa Stevens, Nicole Anderson, Lynette Bell, Mary Culler, C.D. Glin, Jean Oelwang
- Industry leaders anticipate a widespread optimism regarding innovation, virtue, and community recovery despite natural disasters and social grievances, with a specific belief that merging corporate, non-profit, and government initiatives can create a "radically different world" from current engagement levels where only 21% of people feel engaged.
- PepsiCo plans to invest in communities for 10 to 15 years with a long-term horizon of 100 years, moving beyond standard 3 to 5-year nonprofit cycles, while aiming to address food insecurity for one in five U.S. children through its "Food for Good" program.
- The Truist Foundation has deployed $725 million over a three-year investment plan for Western North Carolina recovery from Hurricane Helene, allocating 70% of resources to immediate crisis response and 30% to recovery efforts.
- AT&T intends to expand its "Connected Learning Centers" from 65 to 100 by 2027 in partnership with Dell Technology and Worldwide Technology, alongside a $5 billion commitment to bridge the digital divide for 25 million people by 2030.
- Ford leverages its network of dealerships present in "every community" to host blood drives and resiliency training, while a systems approach aims to align "superpowers" across corporate foundations to determine where each can have the "biggest impact" during disasters.
- Executives predict the nonprofit sector will face "havoc" due to funding challenges and federal pressure, necessitating a shift toward "fewer, bigger, better" programs formed through mergers, coalitions, and precompetitive alliances to avoid operating in silos.
- Organizations anticipate that collaborative efforts, such as the proposed convening in Detroit or merging initiatives like those between Carbon War Room and the Rocky Mountain Institute, could cause programs to "grow 20 times" and achieve results impossible for single entities.
- Corporate strategies emphasize proximate, bottom-up approaches and "precompetitive alliances" to address long-term systems change, with specific plans to deliver products to wildfire zones like the Palisades in "record time" through partnerships with entities like Amazon.
- Future outlooks include expanding "curb cut" initiatives that provide spillover benefits to the general population and utilizing "people power" through networks, alongside a vision where 80% of workers possess a sense of purpose rather than the current 30%.
- Risks include potential funding instability and the necessity for non-profits to secure multi-year resources to avoid repetitive cycles, with a strategic focus on funding innovation and viewing "trust" as invisible infrastructure to support community organizations.
- Internal engagement initiatives, such as AT&T's employee backpack stuffing programs, are designed to improve retention and recruitment by increasing how employees feel about the company, while leaders aim to use "joy" as a discipline to scale large-scale collaborations.