Power of Community Benefits Agreements and the Role of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion with Sam Waltz

Welcome. This is the Public Relations Review Podcast, a program to discuss the many facets of public relations with seasoned professionals, educators, authors and others. Now here is your host, Peter Woolfolk.

Welcome to the Public Relations Review Podcast. You all listeners all across America and around the world Now are you familiar with CBA, that is, community benefits agreements, and also the corporate and community benefits of DEI. Well, my distinguished guest today has successful experiences in both and he will articulate those important benefits today. Also, he is my very first guest from the state of Delaware. His distinguished public relations career includes being the 1999 elected global and national PRSA CEO and president. He has both APR and fellow APR credentials and he won a silver anvil and 2000 for his successful campaign to vindicate the scapegoated 1941 Pearl Harbor Commanders. Now, by the way, he has a friend in Delaware and neighbor who is quite well known all across America and beyond. And, by the way, that friend and neighbor just happens to be President Joe Biden. So joining me today from Wilminton, delaware, is Sam Wolce. Sam, welcome to the podcast and congratulations on your multiple successes, peter thank you very much.

It is a delight to be with a distinguished and esteemed podcaster and professional as you are.

Well, thank you so much. So I tell you what. Why don't we get started by describing exactly what is a community benefit agreement, and then what are the benefits that actually accrue to communities that have these agreements?

Well, when you look at where our profession in terms of public affairs and community relations is and where it's headed, for years we looked at that in the essence of a dialogue How do we build communications? And too often it was the sender receiver bottle How do we send messages? Today, what we're doing increasingly, in my view, with the community benefits agreement being part of what I call really corporate development or organizational development planning, is to recognize that every enterprise, peter, has a variety of important stakeholders who have, in their own cases, a variety of interests and needs that may relate to what an organization is doing. And in light of that, what you really want to do is understand and basically be able to detail those needs and then from that be able to fashion out activities, plans and all of that that really represent a win-win outcome. So, a community benefits plan think of that as the architecture for how an organization will relate to the important stakeholders. It may be civic leaders, it may be blue collar workers, it may be neighbors, it may be the clergy, it may be other important organizations and schools and so on, and building that community benefits agreement really becomes an important new emerging tool and tactic in our skill set as senior level professionals.

Let me add something to that, because I was actually involved here in Nashville when they built their new Music City Center, which at the time was going to be the largest construction project in Nashville's history, and that the Music City Center. Well, if you watch the NBA, the draft has been here, nfl draft has been here. So the Music City Center is a focal point here in Nashville. But the fact was that was exactly what they did. They looked at the community and held forums all over the community for two purposes one, to let them know how it's going to be paid for because it was not going to come out of real estate taxes or anything like that and have them have some input as to what they would like to see in the center. So those that outreach and how it's handled is hugely important to the success of the project.

So you're right on, and in the project I was involved in, my client is going after a major federal minority set aside grant to help bring back solar panel manufacturing from China and India to the United States. We developed it here but it really left by the late 1990s and moved overseas for cost free. and so he's a native of Columbus, ohio, he had successful Wall Street experience and he's got the management gravitas to pull this together. But basically, given our needs, we need to pick an area, a rural area that had the infrastructure to be able to support the power usage as well as the human capital. We picked that and rural East Central Ohio and then from that, as I built the plan to help scale the business, should we be awarded that grant? and it will be a $250 million facility, not unlike the kind of project that you would have been involved in there in Nashville. then we began to say, all right, how do we build a win-win outcome with the community on this? How do we make certain that we're working with the community in the best way that we can do? That was the essence of my work in that.

And I think that's important. So let's focus on that. Let's talk about what you actually did with the community. What did you look for? How did you assemble them? How did you, what groups did you identify And then began to look at what their actual concerns were and how you responded to what those concerns were.

The excellent question, peter. When you look at that, one of the things you always want to do in an emerging field and the CBA, the Community Benefits Agreement, is really an emerging tool in the toolkit of strategic communications and external affairs professionals And the first thing I did was just go back and do some research because I always want to update myself on best practices, what's happening And clearly environmental is one, workforces and other and so on. But I really kind of went back to do some research before I ever went out to that part of Ohio. And then the second thing I did was research that part of Ohio. Now, interestingly, what we wanted to do is be able to build benefits for the community That area happens to be in what they self-regard as a rural, appalachian or Appalachian area of Ohio. We were looking to create identifiable benefits for minority community. but in that county and that area there was not a significant minority community. So part of my council was to develop a plan where we then began to take the benefits of solar energy and solar panel manufacturing to the larger minority community of the entire state of Ohio And to structure that in a revolving loan fund, for example, where minority disadvantaged families and impoverished families could basically leverage that aid to be able to go ahead and save money and fit more in the direction society is headed by accessing the capital to put solar into their own homes. that's going to result in energy savings. At the same time, we began to work with local public officials, from the mayor and the county officials to actually the people who run education. Why? Because we needed to basically be able to put in place human capital programs that could have jobs ready for the right people coming out of their their workforce development programs. So we we did that, that kind of thing. then, finally, we began to look at other areas and one of the things that I recommended. they have a, they have a nicely robust, united way in that county, but they really did not have a kind of a corporate community philanthropy fund that we might know, that we might really know as as a community, as a community fund, and I recommended that we create one of those and begin to really community foundation and begin to fund a community foundation that would begin to extend more permanent benefits that would be a legacy of this plant coming to Ohio.

You know, one of the things that I again that I think about as I listen to this is, particularly since you have so much high-tech industries coming in Nashville has Amazon is down here now, oracle is down here and some others are coming in is that the city and or state they have to begin to train people, either in community colleges or four-year colleges, to be have specialties in some of the high-tech arenas you know, obviously computers or automation, all those other kinds of things that are needed, because without that they can't really compete with other states to win these kinds of development contracts if you can't provide the workers. So have you run across that or been involved in developing workers ahead?

of time, so that they can bring a man well, the whole issue you bring up is a fascinating, really DEI kind of issue, and let me speak to that first and then I'll go to the specifics right here in Wellington, delaware, we're really adjunct to formerly, 200 years ago, part of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, where they have a new governor, governor Shapiro. Interestingly, one of the first things the governor Shapiro did in Pennsylvania and I'm seeing it happen in other places the country is, with the, with rare exceptions, he removed the requirement in Pennsylvania in the public sector to have a college degree, basically allowing people to work into and up to certain jobs. Obviously, certain jobs would need it being a lawyer or being a doctor for the state, some others. But one of the issues from a DEI point of view that I think has increasingly taken root, peter, is required acquiring a four-year college degree or more graduate school is something that can disadvantage certain populations who may have neither the tradition of higher education or the funding to be able to go. And what's what's happening today as a trend is, we're seeing America right now move away, because of the cost of higher education, from the, from the job related requirements where it may not be essential And when that's the case, then the real interesting question is how do you then deliver that kind of training? I think that increasingly we're going to see that happen with workforce development kinds of programs out of schools that we used to look at and say, well, that's shop or that's VWag or something like that, and those programs are going to be increasingly tailored to a more high tech level of manufacturing and services and other things. That will be supplemented by entry level apprentice type programs. The program we're looking at discussing there in that part of rural Ohio is a program that basically would begin to create apprenticeship programs even for some of these students at a junior or senior level in high school, so they can begin to understand that they can see a future and it puts them on a productive track that can allow them to come up in jobs that we previously described as wage roll jobs, but for the ones who may have the interest and the ability and all that grow into other levels of management and professionalization of the enterprise. So that's what I see happening there and that's where our discussions are right now. We won't be pulling the trigger on this until we see the DOE funding, but that's what our interest is.

You know, as I listen to that, i certainly recall, not only here in Tennessee but other places, that some kids in high school who have these special skills, particularly in technology, computer design and so forth and so on, that states now are doing it, getting them started in the two year colleges, community colleges, so that they can get in there and be prepared. And sometimes these kids are hired right out of community colleges into heavy duty jobs and it's then set up so that if they're doing a great job at it then the organization will pay for them to go get the finish up with a four year degree with more education in these high end computer jobs. So there is a recognition, and you're right, that sometimes going to social service the first two years of college, wherever you do your social services, your English or whatever it is, has nothing to do with your future Or just wasting time. And you're right, more kids are out there to go into work rather than go into school because one the cost of education and the fact that I've got a lot of training on how to write computer programming.

Yep, that's absolutely the case, but the cost is a bigger driver than many people realize. And that's one. But the other is how do we really better align our human capital resource with the network force that will be employing them? and i think we're finding a way to be more focused and purposeful, and i think the community benefit agreement becomes the vehicle for creating and managing that dialogue.

Peter and i certainly agree with you because, as i said, here in nashville, or at least in tennessee, for this is a, creating a building, a a plan to build all the electric cars. We've got a general motors down the road from nashville that there's also building electric cars. As i said, google and and a lot of other amazon they're all here. So there is a huge demand for people who have those kinds of skills and uh, and a lot of times they just can't wait for them to graduate from college. So setting a community benefits agreements that helps get the deliver the people to the jobs available is sounds me to be a huge issue in a lot of areas, absolutely. So let's talk a little bit now about the d e i implications of of of what you've been involved in. How do you see that being important and how should uh if the city's and organizations go about establishing credible, effective d e i programs?

well, i think d e i, you know we look at it today is kind of lane markers on the highway from a governance point of view, but i think d e i really uh, is much more driven by now. Hopefully, hopefully, peter, the everyday human values of most of us have as individuals. You know, it's kind of funny to be talking about the e? i for me. I'm a seventy five-year-old gray hair, white hair, white guy who grew up in in a homogeneous rural county of al-anoy where the idea of diversity was answered by the question you go to the catholic church or one of the protestant churches. That was all the reverse and uh and that was it. And yet as a young guy coming out of high school nineteen, sixty five i was interested in issues. I well, my family was involved in democrat politics and by the time i was a sophomore, i was black camp vice president of the campus democrats at the university of al-anoy and aside from the vietnam war, that the big issue of the day certainly was civil rights and forgot. You grew up in a homogeneous white rural county. Uh, i became very involved in that and it's a social ethic that has stayed with me for those nearly sixty years since i need to also say that you know my mother was a southern bad, just so i've got a bit of what i call country bad, just dna and part of that. But i respect and honor all faith site. I kid that i'm the only bad that you're gonna meet who's got his own rabbi. But in the all of that were reminded by that christ was one who said love your neighbor, and that's the heart of what is at taken how we make choices in terms of the e i, it's about caring for people. When you look at my mentees today, i've got, i've got by, just uh, had lunch with one and she's a sharp young woman. Twenty five the wind's day. I had lunch with another one. She's a sharp, young irish woman, banker professional who's actually openly gay. How many bankers are you going to find that are that are openly gay? but but she is in a wonderful person. Three of my mentees are sharp, young, professional, gay women who are gay. And, though it, to me what it's beat is that inherent tradition out of faith, and it's a fit faith, whether you're christian, whether you're jewish, whatever. It's a faith that says we need to treat everyone with love and respect. Again, i joked about the having a rabbi. But i actually have a phrase in the signature block of my email. You've seen it at. The phrase is taken a lot and pick an old mom is an old testament period he grew phrase. That basically translates from he grew as healing the world and i, i just challenge anyone. I need to think of a better focus, a better legacy, a better mission in life than the idea of being a healing agent, being a healing force in life. So when i look at you know the d e i considerations, try to get avoid getting caught up in the dialogue over a variety of structural issues, because the structural issues, even like the supreme court ruling that came about, uh, yesterday, as they finish up their term, you know, has, you know it, it can cut both ways. The doctor martin lucer king, who i wrote about as a young journalist, uh, doctor martin lucer king, views i embrace, basically said race should not be a deciding factor in life. And yet today the generations of asians, americans, are being disadvantaged because were, because big government has decided to pick the winners, band a, and that's what the supreme court basically rebelled against this week. So i can be a an advocate and try and work hard to do the right thing. But from a political point of view i can also in effect resist the mandates of the supreme court tended to do of big government that for picking the winners. You know, i guess i'm probably sharing a bit of my politics there, even though i am still a democrat. But i'm decidedly a centrist democrat, not a, not a leftist, big, big government democrat. And, by the way, you mentioned my neighbor. So i, yeah, i go back with joe biden forty five years as the young reporter. I covered joe before when, when joe was thirty five years old. I've helped joe, joe's helped me. I mentored joe's daughter joe. Joe actually mentioned my silver anvil in the introduction. That was a campaign to vindicate the scapegoated nineteen, forty one pro harbor commanders and will come on general short. And joe biden actually ran point for me on that campaign in nineteen, ninety eight to two thousand and we generated three votes in congress that progressively vindicated the scapegoated commanders. Uh, joe today lives a block and a half from me. I had a visitor in from italy yesterday. I drove in past joe's house. I thought i took him into joe's catholic church where he actually met joe's priest. So you know our whole community is is a very all kind of an overgrown small town of a community and and you know, joe, if somebody we would have not seen in the coffee shops, joe and i had the main pharmacist for years at wall greens. Uh, we bought our suits at the same joe bank store up. But that's the nature, as you know, peter, that's the nature of brilliant overgrown small town i agree with you.

But you know one of the things when you mentioned the i, one of the things i think we've all begun to see now uh says this over the last few years particularly when we look at tv commercials. Now, you know, just look at how integrated and uh the without the representation of a wide range of groups that are now in those commercials that hit a four, had almost never been seen. You know, particularly i, i think we might see asian americans or future more prominent now than i think i've ever seen it over the years. So people who are beginning to understand, you know about the importance of embracing the e i uh concept because they see benefits to a particular commercial organizations uh, they see benefits uh from that and they're moving forward to making sure it happens well, that's absolutely the case.

Interestingly, when i bought another business that i have four and a half years ago, my first two recruits and it was not so much by design but first two team members i hired uh, aside from the people who came with it were african-american. Uh. Interestingly, i've got a project that i'm working on now where i'm working with uh i'm going to call him a young man, he's in his mid forties, clinically blind, but he can see a computer screen but out of his disability had an unfortunate criminal conviction, uh, and i'm trying to give him guidance and support, working for an expungement and give him an opportunity to work his way back and create or create a? uh independent income for himself through the work he does for me and maybe a hopefully, for others that gives him a chance to earn his way back. But again, i go back to that whole epic about love your neighbor and and that's the, in my view, the spirit that each of us needs to bring well, i certainly agree with you that.

But let me ask you now, because we certainly did touch a quite a bit on community of benefits agreements are there any other things that you think we should know about that we didn't touch on?

probably, you know, when you, you know, given that your audience, peter, will be an audience that has a strong interest in communications and strategic communications i think, uh, for a guy like me who's been around this field for fifty years i started as a reporter, i, i kid that i have a checkered past, having been in the army during vietnam i was in army counterintelligence sixty, seven to seventy of being a reporter, from before that and from seventy on and then joining the pot, and when you, when you look at that, the interesting thing uh and to me it's been the evolution of our field uh, from really a focus of just on communication where really the cornerstone skill set up in media, media relations today the media, through its own self-inflicted way, is diminished itself as the force that once was in delaware, our, our own newspaper, shrunk to maybe twenty thousand copies delivered, uh, from a hundred twenty five thousand, you know, forty five years ago when i came here. So the media has basically made itself less impact. But what that's meant is that we've needed all of us to work out and understand community, including social affinity, and so what that means to me is that our work has moved more from than just strategic communications really into community building and community management, community relationship management, and that's the increasing challenge of what we do, and when you look at the implications of that, they're pretty fundamental. What is to behave ethically? Another is to be transparent And third is to keep your commitments, and I think that that has been the really relevant and important part of where we're moving, peter, you and me and others who do what we do as a profession.

Well, sam, let me say that this has been a very, very engaging discussion that we have had here today, and I really want to say thank you so very much for taking the time to come join the podcast today, and I'm sure that there are going to be a lot of listeners who will benefit from your wisdom.

Well, peter, i'm humbled by your comments. I truly am Thank you And I just I value the opportunity to build on our relationship, yours and mine. I'm here, peter, feel free to reach out And I invite any of your listeners to reach out to me. I'm easy to find on LinkedIn and by searches and so on. I kidded this young man, peter, at lunch, who's 25, i'm still working on my next five-year plan. I keep renewing my five-year plans every year And people come up to me, peter, and they say Sam buddy when are you going to retire? And I say well, when you read my obituary you can assume that I'm probably retired. And but you know, i'm an old farm boy. I grew up, i grew up in Illinois. I grew up on a sharecroppers farm right down to the outhouse south back. We did not have indoor plumbing and our Saturday night bath was a galvanized metal in a metal tub on the kitchen floor where the water was warmed on the stove. That's how I started. That's the sixth day a week farm life. I read was in with church on Sunday And today I live a block and a half from the president of the United States and I work with clients, from CEOs to universities and all of that. I love what I'm doing. I'm out there, i'm available and I welcome any kind of outreach Any of your listeners, you or colleagues or friends want to make.

Okay, well, my guest today has been Sam Walsh, with Sam Walsh and Associates of Strategic Counsel, and Sam, as he mentioned before, is in Wilmington, delaware. So I want to thank Sam again And, of course, i always want to thank my listeners for joining in on our podcast And, of course, if you've enjoyed the podcast, we certainly would appreciate a review from you And I also encourage you to share this podcast with your friends and colleagues. So, as always, say, continue to listen and listen for the next edition of the Public Relations Review podcast.

This podcast is produced by Communications Strategies, an award-winning public relations and public affairs firm headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. Thank you for joining us.