"May you live in interesting times."

It’s an old Chinese curse that has seldom been more true than today.  In one day, more than 70,000 job cuts were announced. The stock markets are down nearly 40% from their high water marks.  Bankruptcies are up, investment is down. A quick survey of the rest of the world yields everything from wars and recession to pestilence and famine. At least we don’t have to deal with locusts…yet.

So these are the steps BCLC is taking:

• We continue to work with federal agencies, as well as state and local chambers and businesses, to help the Gulf Coast, South Florida, southern California, and Iowa recover from the disasters of 2008.

• We are applying the tools we’ve developed from our disaster work to the economic crisis – setting up a web portal, documenting business assistance and services, and facilitating public-private partnerships to promote community and small business recovery. To support this effort, we have hired Katie Loovis, the former head of Take Pride in America.

• We engaged development and CSR experts Kurt Hoffman  and Michael Hopkins to advance our work in support of the American chambers and multinational companies interested in addressing the social issues affecting global development.  Our spring working meeting with them will be in Brussels, April 2-3 .

• We are strengthening and expanding our sustainable community agenda, working with Michael Gallis, one of the premier regional urban planners in the country. We are also offering companies the chance to shape our Business & Society program by creating a new working group to address stakeholder management issues – non-profit relations, philanthropy, volunteerism, and ethics.

In short, everything we do this year is focused on how to help companies create wealth, reduce poverty, and get people through these tough times. If you want to find out more, please send an inquiry to Rebecca Freyvogel.