Counselor to help Cisco workers donate a piece of their prosperity
Advice on sharing wealth
BY JOHN BOUDREAU
Mercury News
You've heard all the Silicon Valley perks: The chef serving up a
three-course lunch, the 4 p.m. yoga class, the office ``retreat'' in Hawaii.
Now, there's the on-site philanthropy counselor. Getting in touch with
one's inner philanthropist isn't as easy as you'd think.
Cisco Systems Inc., which has helped many employees become
millionaires, wants to help them give that overnight wealth away. Starting
next month, a full-time counselor will have an office cube at Cisco to
advise workers about how to shed some of their gold-like company
stock.
The position is yet another example of Silicon Valley's 24/7 corporate
culture: People fall in love at work, exercise at work, sleep at work. Now
they can work out their giving issues on the company clock.
``It's better than picking up the dry cleaning,'' says Stacy Palmer, editor
of the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
Cisco is already a leader in corporate philanthropy. The idea for the
in-house counselor is the brainchild of Peter Hero, president of
Community Foundation Silicon Valley, a San Jose-based non-profit fund
that specializes in helping donors pick charities. In a 1998 survey, the
foundation learned that office attitudes toward giving greatly influenced
workers.
``This is a Silicon Valley way to bring philanthropy to the employees as
opposed to hoping they find this information on their own,'' Hero says.
``Just as some companies provide counseling on financial planning, this
will be an opportunity to provide advice on sound philanthropic
strategies.''
After all, if employees can play volleyball at work, why not give?
At Cisco's headquarters in San Jose, the counselor will set up an in-house
Web site listing charities and allowing co-workers to ``leverage'' donations
by joining others interested in the same organizations.
``We are not going into Cisco promoting any cause or agency,'' Hero
adds. ``We are simply providing a resource to people on what is
available.''
The counselor will technically be an employee of the Community
Foundation and will hold one-on-one sessions with Cisco employees.
Hero is now looking for someone to fill the job. Cisco will pay the
foundation a fee, which is still being negotiated, says Tae Yoo, the
company's director of corporate philanthropy.
But the counselor will be held to a Cisco standard.
``We are going to give this person a goal to sign up people,'' she says of
the philanthropy adviser. ``Just like a sales quota.''
Those in the philanthropic field say they've never heard of such an effort.
Other companies could do the same, they add. Providing meaning in the
workplace could help retain talented employees.
``It is so wise,'' says Dorothy Ridings, president of the Council on
Foundations in Washington, D.C. ``We think of employee benefits as
being a very static set of things. This is the sort of thing that has
enormous appeal to exactly the kind of employees that Cisco has.''
Indeed, Cisco employees are in a separate class: More than 2,000 of
Cisco's 19,000 workers are millionaires from their Cisco stock.
Extreme success comes with its own issues. ``People think it's so easy to
give money away,'' says Palmer, the Chronicle of Philanthropy editor.
``But you can fizzle it away very easily. You do need some counseling.'' |
