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Please, corporate America, help out in Haiti!
By Lauren | January 15, 2010
Today, I’m interrupting my Friday series on keeping your business out of court to focus instead on the mounting crisis in Haiti. Apparently, as many as fifty thousand people have died in the wake of the earthquake that demolished the island four days ago. According to news reports this morning, the people of Haiti have already buried more victims than were killed in the U.S. on 9/11, and the death toll keeps on growing. There’s a desperate shortage of water, food and medical supplies. Based on what we saw just a few years ago in New Orleans, if a whole lot of help doesn’t arrive soon the situation in Haiti will go from atrociously bad to unconscionably worse.
There’s an impressive array of charitable organizations struggling to help with the crisis, but money and supplies are short. It’s wonderful that so many individuals are stepping up to contribute, but just imagine how much more could be done if big corporations would kick in. Just think … how many millions of dollars are on the table right now in pending bonuses for top execs in the banking industry alone? What if even a small percentage of that money went to the Haitian relief efforts? How much misery could be prevented?
This may sound like a tongue-in-cheek suggestion, but I’m quite serious. Corporations can make charitable contributions, and this would be an ideal time to do it. Big American companies spend billions every year on lobbying, tax avoidance, holiday parties, teambuilding exercises for middle management, and a wide array of other expenditures that make good business sense if a company has discretionary income. Still, many of those expenditures do minimal good outside of company walls. Spending just a little of that money now to help out in Haiti would not only give corporate giants with tarnished reputations legitimate bragging rights - it would also be the humane thing to do.
Topics: Business Ethics, Social Ethics, corporate responsibility, ethics |
January 15th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
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