Companies With a Cause: Finding Purpose Beyond Profits

BY juliemadsen | April 24, 2019

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Pride Month Without Partners: As June Approaches, Corporate Support Recedes

As Pride Month nears and WorldPride prepares to mark its 50th anniversary in Washington, D.C., the celebration comes with a question: where did all of the corporate allies go?In years past, brands jumped at the chance to market themselves as allies during Pride Month. Companies like Nike, Target, and Apple poured millions into Pride campaigns, with Pride-themed products, promotional materials, and partnerships. In the month of June, rainbows could be found anywhere you looked, from social media to train cars and store shelves. While Pride had become a major corporate initiative, with Fortune 500 companies sponsoring parades and selling rainbow products, skeptical members of the LGBTQ+ community criticized these efforts as performative, and the term “rainbow-washing” gained traction in media.But this year, as the economic and political landscape has changed, those who doubted the depth of corporate commitment have been validated. Many companies are quietly, or not so quietly, stepping back from their rainbow-filled marketing efforts and broader DEI commitments. “Since Jan. 21, when President Trump signed an executive order calling DEI ‘dangerous, demeaning and immoral,’ companies have treated it like a dietary fad suddenly found to pose mortal health risks,” wrote Bloomberg’s Brad Stone.“I know that they’re facing tough decisions inside those organizations, and I don’t want to call them out,” Suzanne Ford, the executive director of San Francisco Pride, told NBC News. “I want to call them in. We will remember who stood by us and who didn’t. When it was politically popular, they were lined up.” The Growing Shift in Corporate SupportIn New York City, home to an annual Pride March on Fifth Avenue and the host of WorldPride in 2019, companies such as Mastercard, PepsiCo, and Citi have scaled back or withdrawn their sponsorship of this year’s events, reports the Wall Street Journal. “Two-thirds of last year’s NYC Pride sponsors have agreed to renew their sponsorships, but the rest remain in negotiations to return, have scaled back their funding or have said they are not sponsoring this year,” writes Journal reporter Patrick Coffee. Some companies are even asking for their names to be taken off of promotional materials and event merchandise, out of fear of political backlash, says Eve Keller, co-president of United States Association of Prides. “It’s multilayered, and it’s all happening at the same time,” she said.The retreat from advocacy and financial support occurs amid a broader upheaval in the DEI landscape. Resistance to DEI, which has been growing for over two years, intensified when president Trump’s second term launched a crackdown on DEI across the government, academia, cultural organizations, and corporate America. Before the new legal threat, major companies like Walmart, Google, Target, Ford, Lowe’s, and Amazon had already scaled back their DEI efforts. These cutbacks included reductions in DEI spending, labeling, diversity goals, and partnerships with organizations that track DEI progress.But the backlash to DEI advancement has produced its own backlash. The consequences of companies stepping away from DEI are becoming visible. Target’s decision to scale back its DEI program, including support for gay rights, sparked a boycott that has taken a toll on in-store traffic, which dropped 9% in February and 6.5% in March compared to the previous year. While Target is still sponsoring New York City’s annual Pride march, it has taken a quieter, “silent partnership” role, according to Kevin Kilbride, media marketing manager for NYC Pride. The shift is part of a broader trend of companies pulling back from public LGBTQ+ support, which can weaken the visibility and impact that Pride sponsorships are meant to have. Meanwhile, Twin Cities Pride has declined Target’s sponsorship altogether. NBC News reports: “Andi Otto, the executive director of Twin Cities Pride, said he chose to turn down the company’s $50,000 sponsorship because he didn’t like the message it was sending to the LGBTQ community and communities of color.”Marching Forward, With or Without Corporate SupportIn contrast to the pushback, some companies have remained steadfast in their commitment to supporting the LGBTQ+ community. Levi’s, a longstanding ally, has continued its support, with product lines focusing on “queer joy through self expression,” and continued funding for Outright International, a global organization working to advance human rights for LGBTQIA+ people. Ben & Jerry’s, the prototypical progressive brand, has also maintained its visibility, professing LGBTQ+ Rights as an issue they care about. Other brands like Visa and Oreo have implemented and renewed Pride campaigns, emphasizing inclusion even in a more cautious corporate climate.The question now is whether the corporate world will eventually return to the visibility and support it showed in recent years, continue to retreat into quieter forms of advocacy, or withdraw from the conversation altogether. Some in the LGBTQ+ community may not view corporate involvement as essential, but it can signal broader public support and offer a sense of visibility and empowerment, much needed at a time when the Trump administration is slashing funding for research into LGBTQ health. In keeping with its opposition both to DEI programs and gender-affirming care for adolescents, the administration has scrapped “more than $800 million worth of research into the health of  LGBTQ people, abandoning studies of cancers and viruses that tend to affect members of sexual minority groups and setting back efforts to defeat a resurgence of sexually transmitted infections,” the New York Times reported this week, based on an analysis of federal data.While the drop in sponsorships and LGBTQ+ supportive marketing is disheartening to the community and its advocates, Pride’s core message remains unchanged. Since the Stonewall Uprising in 1969, Pride has been more than a celebration. It has always been a movement rooted in resistance, liberation, and the ongoing fight for visibility, with or without corporate support.Erin Behrens is an associate editor at From Day One.(Featured photo: Vladimir Vladimirov/iStock by Getty Images)

Erin Behrens May 06, 2025

The Brand Manager’s Nightmare: Is Every Purchase Decision Now a Political One?

Starting May 12, Avelo Airlines, a budget carrier, is scheduled to begin flights chartered by the U.S. government to fly from Mesa, Ariz., to El Salvador. The Boeing 737s will be carrying not vacationers but people, in shackles, who are being deported, destined for a known hellhole of a prison.Even before the plane took off, Avelo had touched down in a public relations fiasco. Avelo said it was proud to assist the government, yet all but stated that it needed the business. The company is a startup, an Ultra Low Cost Carrier (ULCC) that operates out of secondary airports such as Wilmington, Del. Avelo quickly became the target of a boycott by groups in Delaware, as well as Connecticut and California, where it operates, who accused the airline of transporting people who were being deported without due process. For that same reason, Connecticut’s attorney general, Will Tong, threatened Avelo’s tax breaks and subsidies.A higher-profile company, Tesla, has learned the cost of the controversy created by its CEO, Elon Musk, who spent $250 million to help elect Donald Trump president and then fired tens of thousands of federal workers in his role as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).The world’s richest man has lost some $150 billion in wealth this year as shares in his car company continue to fall. Tesla reported that its profits dropped 71% and revenue from car ales declined 20% in the first quarter as customers abandoned a brand once viewed as progressive and eco-friendly. But Musk’s ties to Trump have made the Tesla brand toxic. The used car market is flush with Teslas, as owners abandon the company. Tesla owners who can’t afford to unload them display bumper stickers proclaiming, “I bought this before Elon went crazy.”For other companies caught one way or another in the political crossfire—Target, Anheuser-Busch, Costco—it’s a year that offers lots of bad options concerning brand and reputational risk as America’s politics continue get more strained. And pained.Even America as a brand is in play, the golden door having been slammed shut, the world leader now becoming isolationist. The president of the U.S. dissing Canada, geography’s nicest neighbors, has set off a boycott by Canadian tourists that is already apparent in places like Las Vegas, New York, and Florida.  Within this political maelstrom, companies are trying to figure out whether consumers are going to turn every purchase decision into a political one. As for me, I'm just trying to buy paper towels on the cheap.  Does my cereal choice really have to be a commentary on the Trump Administration?  Can’t a hamburger just be a hamburger? Increasingly, the answer is no.The Hazard of Getting Outside the Brand FitOf all the corporate jobs I wouldn’t want to have right now—other than DEI director—brand manager might be one of them. This used to be a fairly straightforward assignment. If you are in charge of say, Ivory Soap, your job is to make sure the brand speaks to purity, cleanliness and motherhood.But in our over-politicized world, virtue signaling and value signaling can trip over each other. And when they do, there’s trouble. We saw this happen, most spectacularly, when Anheuser-Busch’s Bud Lite brand decided to do a promotion with a transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. There was an actual brand fit—Bud Lite has a longstanding marketing presence in the LBGTQ community, just as it does in deep red areas. And given that Bud Lite had run some pretty insipid creative in the past (and I’m talking about you, Spuds MacKenzie), this promotion should have had a half-life of about 30 seconds.But Bud’s umbrella brand image of traditional American masculinity—all of it pulled by Clydesdale horses—was too much for MAGA America, which staged a loud boycott. Bud Lite’s sales tanked until the company counter-programmed with the reddest of red, white and blue advertising. Gay and trans people are still drinking Bud Lite, presumably, but you are just not going to see that highlighted as much. You can call A-B a coward for being bullied, but brands, and the companies behind them, adjust their identities at considerable peril. Consider what happened to BP, the British oil giant that tried to reposition itself as a green energy company.  Then its Texas refinery blew up, revealing the firm’s horrible environmental record. Granted, oil companies did green energy pantomime during the Biden Administration, but they are suddenly oil-and-gas companies again, as opposed to the energy companies.And maybe that kind of honesty is preferable. Resource extraction is a dirty business. If you’re driving a gasoline-powered auto, maybe you shouldn’t expect chlorophyl from a hydrocarbon seller;  just fill’er up, shut up, and drive.But if  you want to know how to do down-and-dirty,  there’s Waste Management, now known as WM, which has managed to raise trash removal to some kind of sacred environmental  mission. WM’s communications all but scream, “We love garbage!” It’s a clear corporate statement that shareholders and other constituencies can understand.How Much Leeway Does a Brand Have?A company’s brand or trademark is often explained in terms of permission: What does your brand or logo allow you to offer customers? Being Budweiser gives you permission to market the beer made by a company founded by a German immigrant—that is now part of a Belgian-Brazilian conglomerate—as All-American. But Anheuser-Busch earned that permission over the last 100 years of brand communication. What it doesn’t permit you to do is engage in identity politics, at least not today.And not every brand-marketing failure is caused by controversy. In the 1980s the old-line retailer Sears, Roebuck bought Dean Witter, an old-line stockbroker. The reasoning was that consumers would gladly buy stocks where they buy socks. Because both firms were trusted, went the logic. But people didn’t shop for equities and power tools the same way, wouldn’t you know. Sears had neither mission nor permission to sell stocks.Costco, on the other hand, is an example of a company that had permission from its customers to freely reject the anti-DEI initiatives of the Trump Administration. From its beginning as a membership wholesale club, Costco was green, liberal, worker-friendly and an absolutely first-rate operation. Customers love the place because cheap groceries and merchandising magic are bipartisan. There was no red drain from Costco’s coffers, because the company and its culture were behaving in the way that co-founder Jim Sinegal had executed from the start.Target employees marching in the New York City Pride Parade in 2017. When Target stepped away from its DEI commitments earlier this year, a boycott broke out (Photo by Aneese/iStock by Getty Images) On the other hand, poor Target, the midwestern retailer that’s been a favorite of young families, managed to catch it from both the left and the right by trying to please both. Target’s decision to back away from its DEI program, which included supporting gay rights, infuriated the soccer-mom set as well as Black shoppers. The ensuing boycott has hurt in-store traffic, down 9% in February and 6.5% in March  vs. the prior year, compelled CEO Brian Cornell to seek a meeting with Black leaders to try to repair the damage. The company pledged to buy $2 billion from Black-owned suppliers. But not everyone in the community is onboard.Then we’ve got Ben & Jerry’s, where the corporate owner, the Dutch conglomerate Unilever, just fired the CEO for being too political, even though the brand has a stated mandate to be socially progressive. This in the context of Unilever's decision to sell its ice-cream portfolio, which the company carefully assembled and artfully mismanaged. Co-founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield have offered to buy back the company and return the brand to its progressive roots. Set Chunky Monkey free! That might not matter to people who just want some chocolate ice cream. But if you are part of the company and its community, you care a lot, because the politics are part of the culture.That’s why nobody expects Patagonia to be anything but a fierce environmental steward, because that’s exactly the company that Yves Chouinard created. How fierce? In 2021, Patagonia pulled its business from the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort after a then-owner hosted a fundraiser for far-right, which is to say anti-green, Republicans.Essentially, Patagonia fired one of its prestige customers. You might label that decision as extreme, but it’s also an example of a company living up to its culture and mission. Over the long term, there may be way more value in reinforcing the mission than losing a customer.Bill Saporito is an editor at large at Inc. magazine whose work has also appeared in the New York Times and Washington Post. Previously, he worked as an assistant managing editor at Time magazine and as a senior editor at Fortune. He has written for From Day One on the power gap among labor unions, the myth of the “woke” corporation, and the perils of getting technology and people misaligned.(Featured photo: People take part in a protest on March 2025 outside of the Tesla centre at Park Royal in West London, as part of a campaign encouraging customers to boycott Tesla. Photo by Stefan Rousseau/Associated Press)

Bill Saporito April 30, 2025

Calm Amid Chaos: How to Talk to Your Team About Uncertainty

Life can be unpredictable, and we don’t like it that way.Our brains were designed for certainty. Humans look for patterns in our surroundings to form useful habits and conserve mental energy. Always have: Hunting buffalo in the winter when the animals’ coats are thick. Sowing seeds in the spring before the rains. Buying our lattes from the same reliable coffee shop week after week.These days, a lot feels unsettled: Tariffs on or off? Financial markets up or down?  Recession is possible, but who knows? The Trump administration’s disdain for DEI and ESG has upended workplace culture and hiring practices, leaving many employees confused or upset about their company’s values and practices.All this comes at a time when employee engagement is at a ten-year low. Just 31% of workers report feeling engaged, according to a Gallup survey released in January, well before the current administration began its rapid-fire changes. “Economic uncertainty remains a significant drag on the sentiment of workers as tariffs, federal funding and workforce cuts, and general business uncertainty disrupt investment and hiring plans,” wrote Glassdoor’s lead economist, Daniel Zhao in an April report.No kidding. And it could get worse. This just in from the Editorial Board at Bloomberg: “A financial crisis isn’t out of the question.”How can HR leaders and other managers respond? The first thing is to appreciate the physiology. Uncertainty rattles our nervous system. It creates a sense of ambiguity that our minds struggle with. “The stress of uncertainty, especially when prolonged, is among the most insidious stressors we experience as human beings,” said Aiofe O’Donovan, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychiatry at the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, back in 2020, when the pandemic was our biggest problem. Now impacting our psyches are the upending of global alliances, accepted health practices, and predictable weather patterns.Some workers are literally cracking their teeth from stress, dentists in Washington, D.C., have discovered recently. Even Slackmojis have taken a very dark turn.When our prediction-seeking brains are challenged with too many plot twists, we tend to feel threatened, scared, and overwhelmed. But there are proactive steps that leaders can take to restore some calm, promote needed focus on work, and reduce the long-term, unhealthy effects. Among them:Validate and EmpathizeHumans need to feel understood. If your workers are quietly panicking and seeking reassurance, let them know that their concerns are normal and understandable. Give them space to talk about their fears and listen to their perspective. You might see more tears during meetings or meltdowns over minor mishaps. When appropriate, remind workers about the resources the company offers, such as EAPs, employee resource groups (ERGs), mental health therapy of all kinds, and even subsidized gym memberships that might give them places to feel supported or just sweat out their anxiety. While being a careful listener may require extra effort, there’s a substantial upside: research finds that workplaces that promote candid communication tend to be more collaborative, have higher morale, and react to layoffs with more resilience.Communicate Regularly, With EmpathyKeep your workers well-informed. During uncertain times, “employees most want information about their job and the organization,” according to research by Kristine W. Powers and Jessica B.B. Diaz, academics at Claremont Graduate University. “They want psychological and instrumental support from their manager and clear, fast, and accurate communication.” If you’re making changes to programs, like DEI, explain why, as candidly as possible. If you’re keeping everything the same, tell them that, too. If your company is using silence to the outside as a strategy, then keeping your internal communications robust is even more important, writes Paul Klein, author of Change for Good: An Action-Oriented Approach for Businesses to Benefit From Solving Social Problems, in a recent Forbes article. “Use this as an opportunity to deepen your team’s understanding of the company’s purpose and impact. Develop internal newsletters, Q&As, and leadership briefings that reinforce your values. Employees are your most credible messengers. They need to know what you stand for, even if the world outside doesn’t hear as much as before.”Be prepared for pushback. Some employees might be upset that you are bending to the current political winds and may quit, rebel, or confront, as the Washington Post reported last week. Think honestly about the impact that might have on morale and staffing issues.Celebrate the ControllablesA powerful antidote to anxiety is agency. Help your workers focus on what is squarely within their control. Praise the value of their work and guide them to new projects or tasks that will give them a sense of mastery. Be clear about what they need to do and let them figure out how they can do it.  And don’t be shy about asking for feedback on matters ranging from office layout, meeting scheduling, even party planning. If you have the resources, send out a survey soliciting advice on how a specific system might be improved. When workers feel trusted and see that their feedback matters, they’ll feel like significant members of a team rather than cogs in a wheel.Fact-Check Your Own FearsTo be a good leader, you need to have a grip on your sense of uncertainty. When faced with conflicting and frightening news, it’s common to panic or catastrophize. First, ask yourself, How likely is this to happen or How real is this threat? If your honest answer is likely, then turn to trusted sources. Talk to a good friend, colleague, or manager to gain perspective.  If the threat is about the world order, consult well-reported, professional news sites for information rather than random posts on IG, X, or TikTok. One resource to help spot misinformation is Rumor Guard from the News Literacy Project, a nonprofit dedicated to teaching Americans how to discern fact from fiction and dispelling viral rumors.Take Ten—and Commend It to Your Team“Most of us are working with tired brains,” says Amit Sood, M.D., author of The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living. If you're getting caught up in the rapidly changing political rhetoric, take ten-minute breaks during your workday. Treat yourself to micro naps, mini nature walks, or a sound bath on Spotify—anything that will give your tired mind some time to rest and recharge. And please, don’t scrimp on sleep. This is no time to be running on empty. You need to be in good mental shape for yourself and your workers.Model Self-compassion and CuriosityWhile this might sound self-indulgent, research proves that workers who treat themselves with grace rather than punishment perform at a higher level, have less workplace stress, and are better team players. How does this look? Instead of tearing yourself down, ask: “What do I need to overcome this challenge? How can I grow from this experience? What support would help me move forward?” This is the advice of Kristin Neff, associate professor in the University of Texas at Austin's department of educational psychology, and the author of  Mindful Self-Compassion for Burnout. And apply the same level of curiosity and kindness to workers who are struggling with uncertainty, burnout, or any type of work challenge.Admit Your Mistakes and Clear the AirLeaders will make mistakes navigating the current unpredictability and they should admit their vulnerability, says Bill George, the former CEO of Medtronic and author of the classic True North leadership books. “Harvard is acknowledging it didn’t control the antisemitism on campus,” he told the Minnesota Star Tribune last week. “So let’s put that one out there. Harvard leader Alan Garber is clearly doing that. I think clearly [CEO] Mary Barra at General Motors, who was trapped with the tariffs, right now is acknowledging some of the mistakes that they made, and they’re trying to adapt to that. So I think we do see many leaders now being more vulnerable. Some are not. They’re afraid of being vulnerable. But I think when you do that, then you kind of clear the air. You have to admit your mistakes. Any leader that won’t admit their mistakes is not a real leader.Keep Track of the Good and the GreatEven during difficult times, one can find positive events and ideas to appreciate. Focus on your accomplishments and help your employees do the same. Robert Waldinger, M.D., author of The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness, shared a humbling story in a recent blog post: “During the An Lushan Rebellion [a major uprising against the Tang Dynasty in China, 755-763 A.D.], amid so much death and destruction, there was a poet who was trapped in a town that was being destroyed. He wrote a poem called ‘The View This Spring.’ The poem is just two lines.” It goes: The nation is destroyed, mountains and rivers remain. When you find yourself consumed by worry, zoom out to the bigger picture. Take stock of your wins and the beauty in your life and world. And help your workers do the same.Lesley Alderman, LCSW, is a psychotherapist and journalist based in Brooklyn, NY. She writes about mental health topics for the Washington Post and has been an editor at Money and Real Simple magazines and a health columnist for the New York Times.(Featured photo by iStock by Getty Images)

Lesley Alderman, LCSW April 22, 2025