Interview: Sue Stephenson on The Ritz-Carlton's Local Philanthropy Projects
Even in the current economy, many new development projects continue downtown. The people behind LA Live are hopeful that their complex will be a viewed as a place for arts, music, entertainment, and business to coexist. When LAist heard that The Ritz-Carlton was building a hotel at LA Live, we wanted to find out more about how this luxury hotel company would fit into the downtown landscape.
Currently The Ritz-Carlton is on a quest to make choices that are relevant. Long known for traditional values and gracious customer service, the company has been transforming itself into one that continues to honor history and tradition while striving to create more contemporary innovative properties that are connected to the communities they serve.
The Ritz-Carlton runs thriving outreach programs at each hotel location. The company find non-profits in the area around each hotel property and offers good, services, and donations through their Community Footprints corporate giving program. A few hotels have shared volunteer opportunities for years with their guests. Now their new Give Back Getaways program offers volunteer projects at every location, giving the guests the opportunity to learn about the place they are visiting and add some community service to their vacation plans.
Some examples of “Give Back Getaways” include cooking and serving meals at the North Texas Food Bank, helping restore homes in the ancient water town of Wuzhen, China, planting coconut palms and native vegetables at S.O.S Children’s Village, Jamaica, and building homes with Habitat for Humanity in Jakarta, Indonesia and New Orleans, Louisiana.
LAist spoke with Sue Stephenson the Vice-President, Community Footprints program about The Ritz-Carlton’s charitable giving program here in Southern California, volunteering on vacation, and why community service is so important in the current economic climate.
LAist: How long have you been working for The Ritz-Carlton?
Sue Stephenson: Eighteen years. My prior role at the corporate office was Senior Vice President Human Resources. Three years ago I was given the opportunity to start up our social responsibility function, Community Footprints, reporting to Simon Cooper, President and COO. I am very fortunate to have the opportunity to participate in Community Footprints volunteer events as I travel to our properties around the world.
In your own life, how did you get involved with community work?
Not so much as a child back in Liverpool, where I was raised. As an adult I started to get an interest in helping in the local community, particularly with childrens' organizations. Since coming over the United States, I have been based out of Atlanta. My personal experience has been with Atlanta based community organizations like Atlanta Community Food Bank. It's an amazing organization. We are partnered with them for both of our properties in Atlanta and Buckhead. So that is my primary involvement. Pretty much because I travel all of the time, I have lots of opportunity to be involved in projects in other parts of the world.
In the Community Footprints program each hotel collaborates with local organizations to donate products and services for aid with hunger and poverty relief, the well-being of disadvantaged children, and environmental conservation.
How does each hotel property choose which organizations to partner with?
All of our Community Footprints programs focus on those three areas. We have found that the success of the program has been through enabling each of our properties to make the determination to which organization they will work with in that community, rather than having a corporate mandate. We have 74 properties around the world. We found it is just much more effective to have our employees really be involved in determining which three or more organizations that their property will participate with in the form of a partnership.
What is the process for choosing?
We provide guidelines on the type of organization. We obviously want it to be a very professional, very effective organization, that has a very effective reach. The hotels teams develop a strategic plan at the beginning of each year, just as they would develop their hotel budget and hotel marketing plan. They also develop their Community Footprints plan as a way if insuring that there is a strategic approach and as a way to determine month by month what type of activities they will be involved in. The challenge is always that there are so many wonderful organizations out there. We focus in on just three or four, when there are probably hundreds at each location around the world. That is always the tough part of the job not being able to reach everybody.
Here in Southern California what non-profits do the The Ritz-Carlton, Marina Del Rey and the The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel hotel teams work with?
In Marina Del Rey we work with Starlight Foundation, Clothes the Deal, LA Food Bank, Hugs Around the World, California Coastal Cleanup, and Friends of the Ballona Wetlands. In Laguna Niguel we work with One Warm Coat, Someone Cares Soup Kitchen, The Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, Olive Crest, Ocean Institute, and Mission San Juan Capistrano.
The Ritz-Carlton will be opening a new location downtown at LA Live this year. Has the Community Footprints program chosen which organizations to partner with for that location?
No not yet. Part of the reason is we wait until we have a fairly sizable pre-opening team on board. We want the team to be involved. The reason the program has such traction is the fact that everybody is so invested in the choice of organization. We have exceptional pre-opening programs that start to involve the team with the local community. The team will do research in the immediate community where the hotel is based to find out what specific needs there night be. Part of it is research and part of it might be experiences that members of the team already have with the volunteer activities they are already involved in.
Is it a donation of products, volunteering, and money from The Ritz-Carlton company?
Yes, It is multifaceted. The way we make an impact is though our volunteer efforts. Last year our employee donates 57,000 hours of service. Cash and in kind donations equaled 7.5 million dollars last year and continues to increase year after year.
Last April The Ritz-Carlton Established a new program called Give Back Getaways. Each location has a special volunteer opportunity available to the guests of the hotel. What is the Giveback Getaway program at the Marina Del Rey location?
It's working with the Bollona Wetlands, which is an area just outside of the area around Marina Del Rey. It's working on moving invasive grasses. It's an environmental project that we have had great feedback on. The people who have participated in it have been very positive. A lot of people don't realize that there is a wetlands space there that is incredibly in danger because of the growth in and around LA.
What is the program in Laguna Niguel?
In Laguna we have two. One is called Surf as Healing. It is partnered with an organization that is teaching autistic children surfing. So the volunteer activity is around helping facilitate the event. There are professional surfing instructors that go out in the water with the children. It is an incredibly impactful program. There is a lot of research on the beneficial aspects of these children having the opportunity to surf with a professional, the sense of calm that it brings to the children. The other one that they are just in the process of launching is with Someone Cares Kitchen. Families go out fishing, bring back the fish, and clean the fish. The fish are then delivered to the soup kitchen. This is not an event for experienced fishers. It is aimed at any skill level or experience. Someone Cares Soup Kitchen, they just do amazing work, reaching a broad audience from seniors to disadvantaged children, people who in many cases don’t know where there next meal is coming from. The other advantage to this program is that they are providing a healthy food supplement. The local team has been very excited to develop this program and they will be launching it next month.
What is an example of a project in another part of the world?
The one in Osaka is linked around Japanese traditional farming. What we try to do with Give Back Getaways is introduce people to the educational component, so that they are not just investing their time working, but they are also learning something about how that organization is helping the community. In Osaka volunteers are educated in traditional Japanese farming methods. Then they prepare meals to donate to people in need in the local community. Depending on the time of year and the season, you would be involved in different aspects of farming and preparing lunches using traditional Japanese cooking equipment called kamado. Then the food that is harvested and prepared to be given to people in need in the local community.
When we developed Give Back Getaway we came up with a number of guiding principals. It had to be unique to the destination, it had to be a positive experience both the volunteers, the community organization, and the people it serves, and the educational component.
In this economy with people cutting back on spending, how do you feel the Ritz Carlton Community Footprints and the Give Back Getaways resonate for people who are still traveling to these luxury hotels for work and vacation?
I don't think we will see a difference in somehow leveraging time away on vacation to giving back. People travel as a way of bettering themselves. This provides an opportunity to also better the place. I think that is going to resonate with people more and more as the world navigates through this economic crisis. One of the reason for developing the Give Back Getaway is we had seen and interest on the part of our guests at a number of locations wanting to find out about volunteer activities, whether it was New Orleans post Katrina, in Cancun with our sea turtle program which we have had in operation for almost ten years. That was the impetus for developing this program and deepening the experience of visiting a unique place. We have been getting great feedback, especially from families that this is a way of doing something meaningful together.
What do you feel is the importance and impact of volunteering and charitable giving in the current economic situation we are all in?
As with guest interest, our employees, I think the interest continues to grow because the needs are becoming so much greater. Whether it is Jakarta or San Francisco, wherever it is in the world those needs are exacerbated by the current economic crisis. I see an ever increasing, ever evolving trend of giving back.
With all of that traveling for work, how often do you get to visit Southern California?
Not often enough because I love California. I was there about three months ago and took part in a number of programs with customers and with the local community organizations. We went as far north as San Francisco. In Laguna Niguel, we made bicycles for a local childrens' organization. I was really fun and a great team building activity. In Marina Del Rey we made fleece blankets for kids in homeless shelters.
We know that we are known for great service to our guests, we also want to be known for great service to the community. It really is part of our DNA as an organization.
photos courtesy of The Ritz-Carlton