BUSINESS WITH A HEART

LEE IACOCCA - DOING WELL BY DOING GOOD!

The latest book by Lee Iacocca titled, Where Have All the Leaders Gone? addresses the serious condition of corporate America and our society as a whole. Beginning on page 147 , there a couple of pages titled DOING WELL BY DOING GOOD where Iacocca praises the work and the heart of NSE (Nu Skin Enterprises).

Below is an excerpt from Where Have All the Leaders Gone? by Lee Iacocca.

Doing Well By Doing Good

Let me share another story about a company that I‘ve been privileged to be a part of.

It's an example of a new kind of business philosophy called common-good capitalism. I think of it as the dragon slaver of corporate greed.

NuSkin is a Utah company that produces natural skin care products. When it was established in 1984, it's Mormon founders wanted to do more than just make money. Mormons are do-gooders by nature. They actually believe that companies have an obligation to contribute to the social welfare.

In 1996, NuSkin established the Force for Good Foundation, an arm of the company that supports relief efforts and community development projects all over the world. Twenty five cents of every dollar made by selling NuSkin products goes straight into this foundation. And this is impressive:100 percent of the foundations money goes to its projects. NuSkin covers all of the foundation's overhead and operating costs.

In 2002 I was approached by Blake Roney, the chairman and founder of NuSkin, and Truman Hunt , the president. They told me about a new foundation they were starting called Nourish The Children. They knew from the work my foundation had done on finding a cure for diabetes that I was interested in nutrition. And they guessed-correctly-that I would appreciate their brand of common-good capitalism. As a businessman, I was impressed by the quality of NuSkin's product and it's large worldwide distribution force. This was a well run company. But what really got me hooked was NuSkin's plan to end world hunger. I signed on, and I have been chairman of Nourish the Children's advisory board ever since.

Here's the way it works.Pharmanex, a division of NuSkin that makes nutritional supplements, teamed up with some leading experts on malnutrition to find out what nutrient mix can bring a child back from starvation. They then created a nutrient dense meal packet, called Vitameal, that would meet all the needs of a malnourished child.

Nourish the Children uses reputable relief agencies to distribute VitaMeal to needy children all over the world, including right here in the United States. So far about seventy million meals have been distributed. The funding is mostly through NuSkin- a combination of company product donations and voluntary product donations from the global distributors and their customers. NuSkin encourages its employees to become Ambassadors-that is, to donate at least four bags of VitaMeal every month, and to enlist others to do so, too. And they award employees who become Ambassadors. It's kind of hard to get around the idea that a corporation would tell its workers that feeding hungry children is good for their corporate career paths.

Blake Roney once told me,”Nourish the Children is five percent of what we do, but it's ninety five percent of who we are.” Whenever I pick up my newspaper and read another story about corporate greed, I think about Nourish the Children. I'll bet most people have never heard of it. Wouldn't it be great if we read more business stories that gave us an inspiring lift and fewer stories that made us sick to our stomachs? And wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if corporate America got the idea that the best way to do well is by doing good?