Businesses Honor King Legacy, Give Back

“President-elect Barack Obama said it best. This election was not about him. It is about us. It is a call to the people of consciousness to rise up and move us forward in the areas where we have gotten stuck,” said the Rev. Bernice King, daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. “We have a lot of work cut out for us.”

Before her death, Coretta Scott King directed the country to honor the life of her husband by participating in a day of volunteer service, a response to his selfless life work as a community organizer.

In keeping with the King legacy, Obama is calling on all Americans to join him in ongoing active citizenship. He and Vice President-elect Joe Biden will be joining thousands of volunteers on Jan. 19, the national day of service, which observes the life of the slain civil rights leader. The Presidential Inaugural Committee says this will be the beginning of a broader push for Americans to give back throughout the year.

In response to Obama’s request, there are now more than 8,500 service events registered on USAservice.org where the PIC encouraged citizens to sign up to organize or attend an event in their local community.

Individuals aren’t the only ones who are answering the call to service. The idea of corporate responsibility has exploded in corporate America. Companies, both large and small, have joined the national tribute by organizing specific King Day volunteer opportunities and organizing their employees and/or customers to volunteer or donate services and products to needy causes.

“Without service I think we would self destruct as a nation and individuals could self destruct also,” Bernice King says. “To some degree, from the smallest contribution to the greatest sacrifice, service is what helps us to remember our humanity, our connectedness, and our responsibility to improving and advancing our society and our culture.”

Bernice King will be speaking at the King Center in Atlanta at an event sponsored by Allstate Insurance for Give Back Day, a component of Beyond February, a year-round program designed to expand Black History Month beyond February.

With Allstate, the celebration does not conclude with King’s speech. From there, more than 1,000 volunteers have signed up to head out into the streets of Atlanta, Martin Luther King Jr.’s hometown, and volunteer their time with several participating organizations. It doesn’t stop there either. Allstate collaborated with Volunteermatch.org

to direct visitors from the Give Back Day Website to organizations anywhere in the U.S. that have planned outreach projects for MLK Day.

“They enter in their zip code and a ton of activities come up for Jan. 19 throughout the country,” says Kim Turner, the integrated marketing communications manager for Allstate. “If you live in Chicago, Atlanta, New York, or Podunk, Miss., there is a place for you to participate.”

Employees at Allstate and Allstate’s privately-owned agencies are also encouraged to get involved. “In Philadelphia, Allstate employees are working with organizations to feed the homeless; In Charleston, North Carolina they will be reading to children at schools; In Albuquerque, New Mexico they are working with the Ronald McDonald House to provide home-cooked meals for the homeless. Across the board we have Allstate employees getting together with their family and friends to participate,” Turner says.

“Incorporating social service is an important part of businesses both large and small,” says Jeff Jones, program director of MicroMentor, an initiative of Mercy Corps, a global humanitarian organization. “I think corporations get a lot of attention, but small

and local businesses are doing a lot more of this work than their corporate counterparts on a relative basis and can reap the rewards just like corporations can. [Customers] are more cognizant of seeking to support businesses with a social conscious. So being able to talk about what you’re doing for the local community and with the non-profit world is very important for people at all ends of the business spectrum.”

Companies, however, should realize that there are alternatives to traditional volunteering, which might involve working at a soup kitchen, planting trees, or painting over graffiti to beautify a community. While people are certainly needed for those activities, skills-based volunteering is an alternative that can allow one to leverage their professional expertise to assist a not-for-profit by helping them to build a Website, create a database, or implement a brand marketing plan.

MicroMentor is an online program that works with volunteers across the U.S. Its mission is to help traditionally underserved entrepreneurs– those who have less access to business development services, including groups such as women, minorities, recent immigrants, the poor, and the disabled. Jones says skills-based volunteerism can help a corporation beef up their pro bono efforts and keep their star employees engaged.

“MicroMentor was created in response to research from the Aspen Institute, a policy think tank, which found that micro entrepreneurs–those with five or less employees–thrive from one-on-one mentorship relationships, especially those that are industry specific or functional specific, like marketing and accounting, for example,” said Jones who started as a volunteer while exploring the world of micro enterprise development. He was brought on as a part time contractor and then joined as staff.

Currently, MicroMentor has a growing community of 900 business mentors and close to 1200 entrepreneurs who collectively have engaged in over 1,000 mentoring relationships, which occurred during 2008. The Taproot Foundation is another skills-based, business focused volunteering organization that packages service grants for volunteers to deliver services to non-profits

“In order for us to advance as a society people have to become involved,” King says. “It enlarges your vision of life and your appreciation of other people. It takes you out of the self-centered perspective where everything is about you.”

For more information on volunteering for Martin Luther King Day, visit MLKDay.gov.

More Web Resources:

USAservice.org
Taprootfoundation.org