In Praise of America’s Corporate Volunteers

To the Editor:

In “Business Leaders Should Lead — and Volunteer” (Opinion, August 21), Curt Weeden identifies an issue of enormous importance. Volunteerism is seeing something of a resurgence, but unless carefully nurtured this small flicker will not produce the sustained flame of voluntarism that would have great personal and societal benefit.

Mr. Weeden quotes David Rockefeller, one of the giants in corporate volunteer leadership (not to mention arts support). Sadly, his generation is, with rare exceptions, no longer running companies, and the next generation is less committed to substantive volunteerism as part of the “job” of corporate leadership. Of course, this is perhaps due to the growing complexity and competitiveness of today’s business environment that force CEO’s to feel that the job of running their business must be all-consuming. Mr. Weeden’s suggestion that separation of the chairmanship and chief executive roles might free up time for “statesmanship” and public service is intriguing and would, of course, also serve the goal of improving public and legislative trust in corporate governance. We in the nonprofit sector have always benefited from the separation of staff and board leadership, and this may be one area where business can take a lesson from nonprofits.

Gary P. Steuer
President
Arts & Business Council
New York