Home > News > Media Coverage

Media Coverage

Charity That Defies Economics
By Steven Pearlstein
Friday, December 24, 2004; Page E01

One of the blind spots of classical economics is that it cannot explain why people give money and time to charity. This is particularly true of supposedly profit-maximizing companies, which year after year -- often without much fanfare or publicity -- provide the crucial base of support for many of the nonprofit organizations in the Washington region that provide necessities of life to those most in need.

Neither time nor space permit a definitive accounting of this "irrational" corporate generosity, but consider these examples: The week's news brought fresh reminders of the sacrifices being made by soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those GIs have been a charitable focus of four companies. Lockheed Martin and its employees contributed more than $600,000 to send more than 24,000 care packages to the troops. AT&T donated more than 325,000 prepaid calling cards to be included in those packages, making possible $6 million worth of overseas calling. US Airways, with the Fisher House Foundation, donated 10 million miles for use by families visiting wounded soldiers at places like Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. And Sears has promised that any of its employees serving with the Reserves or Guard overseas need not worry -- they'll have a job when they return.

Capital One, the credit card giant out at Tysons, recently made news with its donation of $450,000 to provide college scholarships to foster children. No less impressive is Capital One's support for the Child and Family Network Centers in Alexandria, which provides free preschool to at-risk children. The company and its employees provide the center with grants, winter coats, holiday parties, event sponsorships, management advice -- whatever they are asked, reports Kathleen Herndon, the centers' volunteer coordinator.

Another big supporter of the Network Centers is Freddie Mac, which recently sent a check for $450,000 to buy and fix up a location that will add 62 kids to the roster. During this year, Freddie Mac's foundation also had a slam dunk with its Hoops for the Homeless event. It raised $475,000 for three local nonprofits: Carpenter's Shelter in Virginia, Shepherd's Table in Maryland and Miriam's Kitchen in the District.

Scott Schenkelberg of Miriam's Kitchen wrote in to sing the praises of the Bailey Law Group, a small firm that has been staffing a breakfast program for the past two years. This year, Bailey stepped up its involvement by becoming the presenting sponsor at the annual "100 Bowls of Compassion" event, which raised a record $180,000 -- enough to cover about a third of Miriam's annual operating budget.

When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cut back on its prevention funding for the D.C. area this year, Metro TeenAIDS lost a third of its funding. Happily, Robin Portman, Kevin Vigilante and their colleagues from Booz Allen Hamilton stepped in to provide the strategic planning and grantsmanship needed to make up much of the loss. Booz also sponsored the group's annual fundraising auction, which raised a record $90,000.

This has been a tough week for Fannie Mae. But whatever you want to say about the company, its foundation has consistently been on the front lines of corporate giving in Washington. This was a record year for Fannie's Help the Homeless Program that enlisted more than 110,000 people for various walkathons and raised $6.5 million for local programs. And Fannie employees rallied around the Hope for Henry Foundation, created by employee Laurie Strongin in memory of her 7-year-old son, who died two years ago from a rare genetic illness. This month, the Henry Foundation provided computers, Gameboys, portable CD players and the like to kids undergoing cancer treatment at Georgetown University Medical Center.

AOL and its millionaire executives have become fixtures in the Washington philanthropic community. One thinks of Jim Kimsey's support of New Leaders for New Schools, Steve Case's commitment to cancer research, Jack Davies's support of charter schools and George Vradenburg's leadership on Alzheimer's research, to name a few. The company itself is quite focused on what it calls its "aspiration fund," which makes grants to schools for programs that encourage students to think big and envision brighter futures. Out in Loudoun County, folks also know AOL as the lead sponsor of a summer music festival.

Safeway has had a relationship with Easter Seals in this region going back to 1978. This year's involvement by the company and its employees included sponsorship of the annual Pro-Am golf tournament, Cruise for Kids and Walk with Me events and lead sponsor of the first-ever advocacy awards luncheon, which collectively raised more than $500,000 for Easter Seals programs.

The next time you see news clips of Habitat for Humanity putting up another new house in the Washington area, there's a good chance that the bed and dresser that will go into that house will have been recycled from one of Marriott's Fairfield Inn hotel rooms.

One of my favorite Washington institutions is the Power Lunch program run by Everybody Wins, the literacy and mentoring organization. Power Lunch gets adults to give up schmoozing with clients and colleagues over chicken caesars once a week for reading with elementary school students over PB&J's. You'll find General Dynamics employees at John Tyler Elementary, Washington Posties at Ross Elementary and Discovery Communications volunteers at Highland View Elementary in Silver Spring. General Dynamics is also a financial sponsor of the program.

Behind every good Washington nonprofit there is -- what else? -- a Washington law firm. Partners, associates and staff not only provide free legal work, but most often strategic advice, funding, technology services and toys at Christmas.

Among the legal philanthropy that came to our attention this year were Venable's ongoing work with the Seed Public Charter School, King & Spalding's commitment to Women Empowered Against Violence and O'Donoghue & O'Donoghue's weekly advice to welfare recipients at the D.C. Employment Justice Center. Arnold & Porter invested $3 million in cash and lawyers' time to pursue a lawsuit against an international marriage broker on behalf of Tahirih Justice Center. And Patton Boggs represented the First Place Gardens Tenants Association in its two-year battle with a property owner who was later convicted of criminal housing code violations.

For the past dozen years, Covington & Burling has "adopted" the District's Cardozo High, providing funds for school supplies, family emergencies and mentors and tutors for students. Most Saturday mornings, Covington personnel can be found running mock trials for Cardozo's budding lawyers, some of whom will find summer jobs at the law firm. This year, with the help of the Latin American Youth Center, Covington has been offering a once-a-week legal clinic at the school to provide legal advice to students and their families.

And speaking of the Latin American Youth Center, the center's development director, Lynn Jenkins-English, credits Verizon with going beyond its usual commitment this year to expand the center's after-school arts programs for kids and computer training for adults. Verizon and its employees also stepped up their involvement with Covenant House, which serves runaway, homeless and at-risk youth in the region.

Bank of America has long been the leader in financing housing and economic development in economically depressed areas of Washington. That commitment now includes a close relationship with the Washington Area Housing Trust Fund, which makes below-market-rate funding for affordable housing developments. President Peggy Sand credits BofA not only for its generous financial and technical assistance, but also for putting the arm so effectively on the rest of the financial community.

One increasingly popular way for companies to make a community contribution is to identify a discrete project and contribute the money, manpower and expertise to get it done. Out in Prince William county, Woodbridge Plumbing, Prince William Pipeline and Ferguson Bath, Kitchen & Lighting got together to install a new fire suppression sprinkler system at the ACTS homeless shelter. Home Depot employees spruced up the playground at Watkins Elementary School on Capitol Hill. And volunteers from the Boston Consulting Group renovated Ferebee Hope Recreation Center in Southeast Washington, bringing the baseball field back up to code so the local Little League team can play there.

Nearly 50 employees from Deloitte descended on the Goodwill retail and donation center on Glebe Road in Arlington one day this fall to perform fix-up tasks, including setting up a network of computers to look for and keep track of donors. And the new Lifelong Learning Center at Brookland Manor in the District is all wired up thanks to $500,000 in equipment and service donated by Comcast. Thanks to a donation from Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group, 100 local high school students were able to travel to New York as part of a program run by the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship.

Other companies prefer to develop ongoing relationships with one or two charities. Among the partnerships we learned of recently were those between Ernst & Young and So Others Might Eat, and between Quadel Consulting and Family and Child Services of Washington.

For several years now, the Urban Alliance Foundation has been placing students at Anacostia High in afternoon and summer jobs at places like the Advisory Board, the Corporate Executive Board, Merrill Lynch and National Public Radio, with the hope things might some day work into an entry-level job. Now that the World Bank has begun taking several dozen students for the summer, other schools have been added to the program.

And this year's Christmas Charity campaign by the Hecht Co. resulted in $135,000 in grants to 15 local charities, including big gifts to Arlington Food Assistance and Northern Virginia Family Services.

At some companies, community service is hard-wired into the corporate culture. One example is Social and Scientific Systems of Silver Spring, an employee-owned company that provides biomedical research support, data analysis and program design for government clients. This year's projects at SSS included a charity spelling bee, a kid's scavenger hunt, races and walks for cancer, leukemia and AIDS, a Thanksgiving food drive and Christmas gift project, a book drive and a local tutoring program.

If you've never heard the Eastern High School Choir belt out a gospel tune or a Christmas carol, you're missing one of the great pleasures of living in Washington. This year the choir got a new logo and informational brochure designed for them by Mediastudio in Falls Church as part of its CreateAThon, a 24-hour design blitz that benefited a dozen other local nonprofits.

And, finally, the story of Allie Scott, an infant from faraway Allen, Tex., who spent much of the year waging a brave battle against leukemia. Because Allie's favorite toy was a small giraffe, family friends began searching for similar toys and hit upon a giant stuffed giraffe featured on the Web site of PoshTots, a children's toy and furniture retailer based in Glen Allen, Va. Unfortunately, the listed price was a bit steep -- $922 -- so the friends contacted the company in the hope of getting a discount. But PoshTots wouldn't hear of it. The company immediately shipped the giraffe to Allie's room at Medical City of Dallas free of charge. PoshTots also committed itself to donate a portion of each giraffe sale to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Allie died in September, three months short of her first birthday.

I hope you'll recognize this literary effort for what it is, namely a highly incomplete list of the corporate good works in our area this year. For those who feel they know of other corporate philanthropic efforts that should have been included, please accept my apologies, along with an invitation to send along an e-mail next December.

Happy holidays.
Steven Pearlstein can be reached at pearlsteins@washpost.com.
(c) 2004 The Washington Post Company