Can corporate philanthropy help to mitigate Americas image problem overseas?
Dan Demetriad / Contribute magazineArthur F. RyanRYAN: I think, you know, a little bit of brand America is the United States government, not necessarily America or American companies. We do business in a lot of countries, and we’ve not felt any direct effect from any of it. So there is a separation up to a point. But many countries have not had the same backing in philanthropy, certainly from the corporate side—especially in Asia. We have found that it has been very beneficial to share our understanding of problem-solving on a local level. We can take ideas that have worked in Newark or in Jacksonville or Minneapolis and make them work in Tokyo. Of course, we have to adapt them to specific markets, as we have many people in our Tokyo office, and all but three of them are Japanese citizens. So you have to work with your own employees, wherever they are, and ask them, okay, how do we make this work? The response can be extraordinarily positive. We have a program that we started a few yea
