Time and Talent Means More Than Money

CIVIC-MINDED EXECUTIVES

THE day of the great private fortunes is gone. People no longer can give only money to community projects--they must give themselves." So says Thomas H. Coulter, head of Chicago's Association of Commerce and Industry. With this, most U.S. businessmen are in full agreement. While civic-minded executives and their companies still write generous checks (last year corporate donations of $100 and up totaled 40% of Community Chest donations, 34% of United Fund contributions), many businessmen are not content to discharge their public responsibilities with cash alone. Instead, more and more executives are donating time and talent to civic projects, from the Red Cross to slum clearance.

Partly, the new attitude comes from the general change in 20th century business philosophy. Where companies were once concerned only with products and payrolls, today's businessman feels that he is a civic leader with a social responsibility to the market he serves. "Business has a golden opportunity to demonstrate that it can be responsive to more needs of society than its material requirements," says Frank Abrams, retired Standard Oil Co. (N.J.) chairman, who spends at least two days each week on civic projects. But partly, too, the new civic-mindedness is just good hardheaded business sense. Chicago's Commonwealth Edison Co., for example, spent more than $5,000,000 after World War II on promotion to bring some 1,000 new plants to the area, all of which helped Commonwealth as well.

Many U.S. companies have developed elaborate programs of civic aid. Chicago's Marshall Field department store has a special vice president in charge of civic affairs. In Philadelphia, N. W. Ayer Chairman Harry A. Batten organized the Greater Philadelphia Movement, which will open a $100 million Food Distribution Center in 1958 and eliminate crowded, unsanitary markets in the heart of the city. Each year in Houston, Humble Oil & Refining Co. lends a full-time staff of 100 Humble employees to help organize the United Fund drive, while Boeing Airplane Co. President William Allen, who is 1956 national chairman of United Community Campaigns of America, will lend six of his bright young executives to the Seattle Community Chest this year, pay their salaries while they spend three months organizing plant solicitation drives.

In companies with no formal program, the president often encourages his top men to do as much as they can on their own in civic affairs. Richard H. Rich, boss of Atlanta's big Rich's department store, keeps careful check on how active his supervisory workers are in civic affairs. Says Rich: "The minute a man or woman becomes a supervisor, we urge him to get into civic work. We believe it is part of good leadership to be a good citizen." Such giants as IBM, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, American Telephone & Telegraph, National Cash Register, all encourage employees to take on public tasks; at Du Pont so many executives are active that the company makes a point of cautioning them to "participate in, but not dominate" Delaware's civic projects.

As companies increase their civic work, the heaviest load inevitably falls on the president himself. Just as he has the know-how, energy and contacts to make his business succeed, so is he invaluable to civic projects. Republic Steel's President Thomas F. Patton, Detroit Edison's President Walker L. Cisler, Chairman Laurence Whittemore of New England papermaker Brown Co., give anywhere from 10% to 30% of their time to civic projects. In Los Angeles, Hardwareman-Banker Vic Carter was so busy that he either had to cut down his civic activities or his business. His choice: to sell his Builders Emporium, a popular, Sears-like operation for do-it-yourselfers, so he could devote more time to community affairs. In Denver President Joseph Ross of Denver's Daniels & Fisher department store currently leads or serves on some 33 Denver civic projects. And, says a friend, "Joe doesn't just talk; he works, he drives, he produces."

Many businessmen and civic leaders deplore the fact that too much of the work is still done by those who have always done it--for a willing worker is in high demand. They also point out that there are still too many "letter-headers," businessmen who merely lend their names to a civic campaign without also lending their time. Recently, however, more young men are sharing the load. Both they and their companies realize that it will give them invaluable experience; they will meet the top men in their fields, learn to talk and think on their feet. When Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Vice President George M. Dean, whose special baby is Seattle's United Good Neighbor fund, first started tapping junior executives in 1952, he got just ten men; last year he got 48 men from 30 companies.

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