Executive Summary

Involvement Brings Benefits Beyond Bottom Line

Peter Ridder
Publisher and President of the St. Paul Pioneer Press

May 1995

Open the Pioneer Press any day of the week and you’ll see important stories about the profound needs in our community and ways people are responding.

From our unique vantage point as a window on the communities we serve, we’ve told painful stories about problems that all too often seem insurmountable. But at the same time, we’ve enlightened and encouraged readers with stories about the hopeful ways people are getting involved and finding answers. And beyond just reporting the stories, we daily use the power of our opinion pages to move our readers to think - beyond the headlines - about the deeper issues and actions society can take.

Among our readers are our area’s business leaders, people who have a special opportunity - and obligations - to help move our community from those painful problems to hopeful solutions. Today, our communities need us more than ever, just as we need them.

In our business, we often hear the old maxim that a newspaper is as strong as the community it serves. And the old maxim, I think, has a fresh meaning for businesses of many kinds. To grow and prosper, all businesses must make sure that the community they depend on is strong.

These days, there’s no shortage of causes. Options abound for personal and corporate involvement. And as leaders, our commitment is a model for others, including those in our own work forces.

What I’m talking about is a mix of old and new approaches that goes beyond traditional corporate responsibility. From simply giving money to a cause, we must move to the "multiplier" effect of getting employees involved. Companies can touch far more lives and hearts by moving their own people into participation and action. Whether it’s promoting voluntarism, collecting canned goods for a local food shelf, filling holiday gift baskets or supporting the annual United Way campaign corporate-employee efforts can bring a work force together. That kind of solidarity brings benefits far beyond the bottom line of funds collected in a common cause.

Ours is a world of needs so great that simply deciding where to start or how to become involved can be a daunting prospect. One approach, I think, is to narrow the focus to what we realistically can do, and then do that well. We can’t solve all the world’s problems but we can help with some of them.

We also need to be ready to look for new ways to help. Today, the Pioneer Press, other businesses and our community as a whole are grappling with unprecedented changes. At the newspaper, we’ve realized that change, both in our organization and in the information services we provide, will make us a better corporate citizen and a stronger, even more effective business at serving the needs of our readers and our community. Like businesses everywhere, we are changing to position ourselves to enter the 21^st century in the strongest shape possible. We need to be prepared to bring the same spirit of innovation to our community service efforts.

At the newspaper, our mission is to be the premier information company in our market, one that is committed to providing news, information, advertising - and community leadership that make a positive difference in people’s lives.

But we’re not alone. Businesses and their leaders community-wide need to share the mission and the motivation to use our leadership to make our community a better place.

Center for Ethical Business Cultures

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