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Cost-cutting CEOs like Al Dunlap would certainly agree. "Chainsaw Al" wiped out a $5 million annual philanthropy budget when he took over at Scott Paper a few years ago. Now, at Sunbeam, he's eliminated that company's $1 million-a-year giving program. "The purest form of charity is to make the most money you can for shareholders and let them give to whatever charities they want," Dunlap says.
But that's not how a lot of folk see it. "You can't have the biggest force in society, business, concerned only with maximizing profits and still have a socially responsible society," says Cohen of Ben & Jerry's. Says partner Greenfield: "When it's just trying to maximize profits, business lobbies for laws that would be most helpful, even if it means polluting the environment. That's not exactly in the best interest of society."
Socially responsible companies tend to occupy one of three tiers:
OPEN HANDERS At the highest level of corporate conscience are companies such as Ben & Jerry's and Tom's of Maine, a maker of toothpaste and other personal-care products. Ben & Jerry's gives away a stunning 7.5% of its pretax profits and goes to great lengths to buy from minority or disadvantaged suppliers. (The company's earnings fell last year as sales of superpremium ice cream dipped; for the recent first quarter, Ben & Jerry's reported a $1.06 million loss.) Detractors call such contracts posturing and note that Ben & Jerry's has been fighting a lawsuit by a minority supplier that claims to have been dumped. Still, Ben & Jerry's--which sets forth its philosophy in a newly published book, Double-Dip: Lead with Your Values and Make Money Too--has an unusually intense focus on social activism. Each year the company conducts a "social audit" to gauge how well its social agenda is being met.
Tom Chappell, CEO of Tom's, shuts down his factory four times a year at a cost of $100,000 each time, to ensure that all employees attend meetings that frequently center on the environment and other social issues. He and like-minded leaders view profits as a product of doing the right thing. Interestingly, such executives tend to be onetime idealists in their late 40s or 50s. In the 1960s they might have been at sit-ins for social justice. Today they have enough success to apply practical ways to achieve their goals.
PRACTICING WHAT THEY PREACH On the next level is what marketing expert Carol Cone, CEO of Cone Communications, calls "passion branders." They are companies with a long-term commitment to a cause. They not only raise money but also walk the walk of deeply interested parties. If they sponsor environmental awareness, you can be sure they also recycle. McDonald's, for example, has a clear interest in kids and local communities. Its Ronald McDonald House for the families of seriously ill children is one of the country's best-known charitable tie-ins.