Beyond Signaling: Where Corporations Can Actually Step Up

The recent police brutality incidents have sharpened our collective focus on the need for real solutions and systemic change. Corporations, too, have begun asking how they can play a role and be a deeper part of the solution and help usher in meaningful change.  

As a pastor on the south side of Chicago, I have worked with dozens of corporations—from the small to Fortune 500 companies—as they conduct programs to improve our neighborhoods. I have witnessed all forms of approaches, as some companies prefer to do one-off volunteer campaigns while others have chosen to foster long-term relationships through community-building projects. The latter are almost always more successful. 

Through numerous partnerships with corporations, I have put together a list of guidelines for companies seeking to become more inclusive, and to help be the bridge to an America with racial healing. 

• Choose local impact over national brands. It is tempting for corporations to write checks to the big-name national organizations (the NAACP and Urban League, for example), but if corporations want to make a difference in their own communities, look at grassroots programs, local NGOs, and even churches that are addressing local needs.
  
• Don’t write off the blighted areas as hopeless. Make strategic investments in the NGOs and churches that are committed to working and producing in blighted communities. There is nothing more demoralizing than the idea that something is beyond hope. If we want to infuse black communities with hope, nothing—and no one—should be written off as a hopeless case. The south side of Chicago, Baltimore, and Detroit can be redeemed, and corporations can help lead the way.
  
• Skip the “do-good” tourism. It has become increasingly common for companies with good intentions to identify single-day opportunities to invest in black neighborhoods. One-day food banks or volunteer opportunities are appreciated, but they fail to make the transformative change we need. Far better are the corporate initiatives that develop real roots in our communities.
• Invest in startups in the black community. Startups by black entrepreneurs suffer from a lack of capital, and an almost insurmountable barrier to gaining access to investors. For those who want to make a lasting impact, consider hosting competitions for minorities to pitch their business proposals to investors, or advertise in our communities the grant programs and other funding avenues available. Make it a priority to fund startups that will directly benefit our communities.
• Mentor black students. Black students today are the black employees of tomorrow. If we are ever going to close the employment gap at major companies, black students need to understand the academic paths that lead to certain careers, and they will benefit from mentorships and internships. In many ways, black students need the mentoring and internship opportunities even more than their white counterparts, as the black students are often attempting to enter into career paths where they may not know a single person in their own community who has pursued such a path.
• Form strategic partnerships in the community. The best long-term investment a company can make in our neighborhoods is the gift of a strategic partnership. When corporations come into our neighborhoods with the partner mindset, anything is possible. At Project H.O.O.D., a ministry program my church runs to help former gang members turn their lives around, we have been blessed with corporate partnerships that provide everything from jobs training to work boots for their new jobs. These are the kinds of life-changing partnerships that transform individuals’ lives, and, in the process, transform our community.
• Share your talented people with us. Corporations can help identify promising rising executives and encourage them to join the boards of our community-based NGOs. These relationships and partnerships can have decades-long benefits.
• Adopt a small business for mentoring or additional training. Small businesses in the black community would benefit from additional corporate mentoring and training. Corporations that want to make an immediate impact could consider adopting a black-owned small business for mentoring and additional training.
• Give generously of your Four T’s. One of the messages I deliver to prospective corporate sponsors of our programs is that we need “the four T’s”—your time, your thinking, your talents, and your treasure. Creating a new corporate culture will require creativity, sweat equity, and concentrated time. There is no way to achieve great results with superficial investments of any of the four T’s. 

We have much work to do to achieve racial equality, but we also have a strong foundation in the United States. Corporations can lead the way forward by drawing on what all Americans share in common. We are blessed to live in a nation that has an incredible entrepreneurial and innovative spirit—and that innovation is the key for ensuring a more inclusive corporate America.

Pastor Corey Brooks is the founder and senior pastor of New Beginnings Church of Chicago and founder and CEO of Project H.O.O.D. Communities Development Corporation.

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