Page 175 - Free the Idea Monkey

As a friend once put it, we may not ultimately save the world,
but it’s important that our kids know we were on the right team and
we were trying.

I am proud to say that our company
is a huge believer in the idea of doing well
by doing good. We are proud of the clients
we represent and the contributions—both
financial and in-kind—that we make. We
believe in giving to charities, supporting
talented kids with scholarships, letting our
creative folks use their brains to support
benevolent projects, and using our resources,
financial and other, to do the right thing. To
us, not only is that good business, it is totally
consistent with the kind of company we want to run—it aligns with
our purpose and our core values.

And yes, we totally ripped off Oprah’s Big Give as a way to cel-
ebrate Christmas a couple of years ago. There were four teams who
changed the lives of four families. Guess what? Everybody won.

SAVING THE WORLD—THROUGH INNOVATION
President Obama is still in office as I write this, and with the

economic crisis, the health care crisis and the BP oil disaster, the
history he is helping create will certainly be fascinating to review.
But it is a bit unfair to talk about his policies since we don’t know
how they will ultimately play out, so for now, let’s turn our attention
to his predecessor.

During his second term, President Bush announced a plan to stop
the growth of greenhouse gases in the U.S. by 2025, acknowledging
the need to head off serious climate change.

Regardless of your political views, it was clear this was a major
public policy initiative—one that reminded us of another announced
a half century ago. In 1961, President Kennedy declared: “I believe
that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before
this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him
safely to the earth. No single space project ... will be more exciting,

160 C H A N G E Y O U R P E R S P E C T I V E , C H A N G E T H E W O R L D