Ben and Jerry's Joins Will Marre's List of Giving Is Winning Companies

ENCINITAS, CA, December 19, 2010 (Press-News.org) Ben and Jerry's joins the ranks of such companies as Nike and FedEx as successful companies who are giving big. Will Marre, CEO of Realeadership Alliance and author of Save the World and Still Be Home For Dinner (Capital Books), is spotlighting a list of 25 top companies in a series called Giving is Winning who are integrating giving into their core business strategy.

According to Marre, giving and winning go together. "The companies on the list are making industry leading profits and growing at a healthy clip," he contends. "When giving becomes an essential part of your culture, employees are inspired to create more value and consumers choose you."

Ben and Jerry's, contends Marre, is synonymous with a business purpose bigger than quarterly results. Some of their initiatives include the Ben & Jerry Foundation which seeks to empower Ben & Jerry's employees in environmental and social problems efforts and 1% For Peace, a nonprofit initiative that works to redirect 1% of the national defense budget to fund pace-promoting project and activities (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_HYjVn9UcI).

Marre's list of Giving is Winning companies stems from his extensive research being conducted with Clemson University and the University of California San Diego on what successful companies are doing in today's challenging environment that average companies are not. Through data research, executive interviews and in-the-trenches client projects with many of today's thriving companies, Marre, is on a mission to show how successful companies like Ben and Jerry's are becoming unbeatable through strategies that are good for the community as well as the wallet.

Ben Cohen, cofounder of Ben and Jerry's, agrees. He states, "Business is the most powerful force in society. It has the highest potential for solving social problems. Once consumers saw examples of prosperous companies integrating social concerns into their business practices, they were emboldened to demand the same of other businesses. Businesses could no longer say it was impossible."


Visit http://www.willmarre.com/wm/21-companies-leadership-research/ to find out more about Marre's Winning is Giving list and get a special series based on his research findings, "Apple to Zappos: What Today's Successful Leaders Are Doing That the Rest of Us Aren't."

About Will Marre:

Will Marre is CEO of Realeadership Alliance and founder of Thought Rocket, a new online leadership development platform providing up-to-the-minute leadership research on what successful organizations are doing to thrive in the 21st century. Will Marre is also the cofounder of the Covey Leadership Center where he brought the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People to millions of executives and managers worldwide. He also heads the advisory board of the Human Performance Institute (a Johnson & Johnson company) and is an Emmy award-winning writer of a public television learning documentary. For more information please visit http://www.willmare.com.