Flexing Georgia's Corporate "Do-Good" Muscles
Thursday, January 24th, 2019
Do Georgia businesses understand the great mutual value gained from corporate generosity?
I wonder this frequently.
It’s the reason I felt compelled to join with other Georgia business leaders in the goBeyondProfit initiative, banding together in virtual alignment around the value and importance of finding ways to give back beyond our daily business efforts.
Hopefully you’ve been hearing about goBeyondProfit. More than 450 presidents, founders & CEOs signed the pledge and joined us in 2018. Their stories have been running on tv, social channels, websites and here on Georgia CEO. We’re telling the stories I wish I’d seen in my earliest business days.
As an early entrepreneur, I hesitated to share corporate profits and resources for all sorts of strategic and personal reasons. But once Jackson Healthcare started sharing our expertise, time and funds to connect our healthcare professionals to underserved children, the truth of it hit us quickly: our customers and associates loved it. They wanted to join in the effort, they were more passionate about working for and with us.
We helped children heal, and our business got healthier in the process.
My fellow goBeyondProfit Ambassadors and I launched goBeyondProfit as a fully-funded venture for our peers and their companies. Why? Because we want our peers to have the benefit of learning from each other about how and why to give back.
Together we hope to elevate giving back until it becomes the norm for every business in Georgia.
Are you interested in doing more, but hesitant because of marketplace volatility concerns? Don’t wait, I say. Research bears it out repeatedly that putting corporate generosity into practice will bring you tangible results you can see in your own bottom line. And there’s no time like the present to support stronger, healthier communities, and to lend your business model and know-how execution to help. If each of us commits to doing something, our collective impact will be significant.
In 2019, goBeyondProfit is expanding the ways we’ll celebrate Georgia businesses and offer business leader insights, including a deeper relationship with the Georgia CEO team. We hope you’ll join us. It’s never too late to be part of a good thing.
Together, if we each flex our “do good” muscles, we will accomplish more.
Richard L. Jackson is the Founding Chairman of goBeyondProfit, and Chairman and CEO of Jackson Healthcare (JH). JH’s mission -- to improve the delivery of patient care and the lives of everyone it touches -- has contributed to its growth into the third-largest U.S. healthcare staffing firm, 14th largest of Atlanta’s private companies, and one of Fortune’s Best Workplaces. Seeing JH benefit from its “Others First” value led to Rick’s desire to inspire all Georgia businesses to give back generously.
