Beyond Corporate Giving: The Future of Global Engagement

Beyond Corporate Giving: The Future of Global Engagement
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Boeing

Personally, when you decide where to donate your time and money, the choices are relatively simple: what causes move you the most to volunteer, or part with your hard-earned cash? But for an international corporation (America’s biggest exporter, in fact) — with more than 150,000 employees across 65 countries — where to donate resources is a much tougher question.

That’s the issue facing Boeing Global Engagement, the wing of airplane behemoth Boeing tasked with bringing together the different people, regions and cultures that Boeing encompasses around one global strategy that addresses the most pressing issues in local communities, develops an engaged and motivated workforce and invests in the future. Chicago Ideas talked with John Blazey, the Vice President of Boeing Global Engagement, about what companies must do to ensure they’re good “corporate citizens,” especially now that customers demand ethical behavior from executives and the Millennial workforce is looking for unique experiences that allow them to have fun while doing good.

Chicago Ideas: Can you explain the concept of global engagement?

John Blazey: For Boeing, global engagement means building, enhancing and contributing to the social fabric of our world. We invest, innovate and invest again in efforts that support that strategy.

How does Boeing use its position as one of the world’s largest aerospace manufacturers to guide its global engagement initiatives?

We harness the incredible depth and breadth of the almost seemingly limitless generosity of our employees, our professional networks and partnerships and financial resources to inspire change and make an impact in the communities where we live and work. For Boeing, social responsibility goes well beyond a short-term business priority — it’s one of our enduring values, and it’s foundational to everything we do. Thousands of companies give financial support to causes, but Boeing aligns its experts and expertise, employee volunteer time and monetary support — as well as its lessons learned — to organizations it can partner with to make measurable strides in building a better world. This includes lending engineers to create STEM curriculum, human resource teams to help veterans with skills translation and financial resources to support a dynamic culture in our local communities.

How do local communities guide your efforts?

Boeing responds directly to issues that are critical to the communities where our company operates, both domestically and internationally. Some of the issues we’ve worked on include advancing effective violence prevention strategies here in Chicago, environmental conservation and arts education in Washington’s Puget Sound area and reducing childhood obesity in South Carolina. Internationally, we’ve helped address the health and education challenges of First Nations in Canada and supported agriculture-related workforce training and market access in Sub-Saharan Africa.

What questions should companies ask themselves to find out if they’re responsible global citizens? If a business wants to take a turn toward emphasizing corporate social responsibility, where’s a good place to start?

Look at your business model. What do you do well? How far is your reach? How can you bring your business expertise and resources together to benefit the greater good? At Boeing, we asked ourselves these tough questions. When we undertook an extensive strategy review of our organization, the end result was a strategy that channeled our investments towards areas that were authentic and familiar to Boeing, such as STEM education and supporting veterans and their families.

What’s the future of corporate social responsibility?

I think understanding your overall return on investment through impact assessment and benchmarking is a trend you’re beginning to see. Businesses are starting to move away from simply making a grant and towards understanding the factors of nonprofit performance: transparency, governance, leadership and results. It’s about using data to understand the results of your investment and calculate its value to your business, and it allows companies to tell a better story, both externally and internally to help to motivate employees.

In terms of where businesses focus their social responsibility efforts, what’s beyond charitable giving, community engagement and environmental protection?

It’s important to Boeing to be a top corporate citizen, and a significant part of this is working to inspire our workforce to transform communities through employee engagement initiatives and activities. Recently, our domestic workforce raised more than $800,000 for the American Cancer Society, which the company matched dollar for dollar. During the drive period, we not only collected donations, we hosted educational events and facilitated numerous volunteer activities.

Society is increasingly looking toward businesses and their leadership as ethical guides. In order to assume that responsibility, and do it well, businesses like Boeing must demonstrate principled behavior through responsible and responsive governance at every level — from the c-suite on down to the full workforce. The success of community-level partnerships depends on a solid business culture that takes this concept seriously. I believe this not only differentiates a company, but in the long run, makes it more successful in effecting positive, lasting change.

What do you like about being headquartered in Chicago?

I’m a huge foodie, and who wouldn’t enjoy the food scene here in the Second City? But seriously, Chicago’s central location makes it ideal geographically, but even better, it’s a vibrant, thriving and diverse city. It’s an incubator that offers collaboration with other social corporate leaders, allowing us the opportunity to combine and leverage our resources to have a greater impact.

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