Topic: Authenticity, Transparency and Trust in the Age of Covid-19

•  What:  Conference Call for Faith and Belief ERGs
•  Featuring:  Leaders of Intel’s various Faith & Belief ERGs
•  When:  Friday, April 3, 2020
•  Time:  12pm EDT; 11am CDT; 09am PDT
•  Host:  Religious Freedom & Business Foundation (RFBF)
•  Moderator:  Kent Johnson
•  Registration (FREE) Required:  Register Now
•  Join Faith & Belief ERG LinkedIn Group:  Join Now
•  Questions?  Email RFBF

Note: Will not be recorded and is off the record (Chatham House Rule)

Concept

by Kent Johnson, Senior Corporate Advisor, RFBF

The Covid-19 crisis spotlights another threatening illness in companies and society today: The apparent lack of authenticity, transparency and trust.

Especially during this time when we’re barred from in-person interaction, coworkers need to go deeper; to get more personal – and more authentic. We need deep connections among people collaborating all over the world – including people who differ in their faiths and beliefs, but who share core personal motivations to promote honesty, compassion and unselfishness.  This need will remain after Covid-19 is defeated.

Faith-and-Belief-oriented Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) have a lot to offer in this crisis. The Religious Freedom & Business Foundation’s (RFBF’s) online conferences promote freedom of expression about faith and core values in the workplace. RFBF’s rigorous studies illustrate how this freedom enables human flourishing.  We celebrate companies that do this well, especially those that encourage employees to bring their full authentic selves to work, including their faith. And we see increasing evidence that companies are increasingly embracing faith-oriented ERGs as enormously beneficial for business – and for society at large.

We’re thankful that many of you are joining us in this hope-filled venture for a cure to the lack of authenticity, transparency and trust. And we are also pleased to announce the launch of the first-ever LinkedIn Group for Faith and Belief ERGs. Please join our LINKEDIN GROUP to share your thoughts and to stay in touch.

Learn about RFBF’s Corporate Religious Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (REDI) Index:

By Brian J. Grim, Ph.D.

This is part of a daily blog by RFBF President Brian Grim highlighting positive business responses to the pandemic, and part of the COVIDxNOW Global Economic Leaders Consortium, which is seeking to deliver innovative solutions for COVID19

COVID-19: Recommended Preventative Practices and FAQs for Faith-based and Community Leaders

The US Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiatives (Partnership Center) leads the department’s efforts to build and support partnerships with faith-based and community organizations in order to better serve individuals, families and communities in need.

PLEASE NOTE: The following recommended preventative practices and answers are in response to common questions received. They are based on what is currently known about the Novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Should you have questions that are not listed below, please contact the Partnership Center at partnerships@hhs.gov or 202-260-6501. They will do our best to respond in a timely fashion and will continue to update their website as further questions and information come to our attention.

Primary Resources:

•  For updates on the Novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), refer to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) dedicated website. Also available in Spanish.
•  For local information and for recommendations on community actions designed to limit exposure to COVID-19, check with your state and local public health authorities.
•  For guidance and instruction on specific prevention activities related to your community’s tradition and practices, refer to your national and regional denominations.

The Role of Faith-based and Community Leaders Faith-based and community leaders continue to be valuable sources of comfort and support for their members and communities during times of distress, including the growing presence of COVID-19 in different parts of the country. As such, these leaders have the unique ability to address potential concerns, fears, and anxieties regarding COVID-19. Additionally, by reiterating simple hygienic precautions and practices, these leaders can broadly promote helpful information, managing fear and stigma, and restoring a sense of calm into the lives of those in their care.

Such leaders are also poised ― through their acts of service and community relationships ― to reach vulnerable populations with essential information and assistance. These acts of service are an essential part of the safety net for the vulnerable in their communities.

Read more FAQ.

By Brian J. Grim, Ph.D.

This is part of a daily blog by RFBF President Brian Grim highlighting positive business responses to the pandemic, and part of the COVIDxNOW Global Economic Leaders Consortium, which is seeking to deliver innovative solutions for COVID19

Church Helps Feed People in Need

By Brian J. Grim, Ph.D.

This is part of a daily blog by RFBF President Brian Grim highlighting positive business responses to the pandemic, and part of the COVIDxNOW Global Economic Leaders Consortium, which is seeking to deliver innovative solutions for COVID19

Business Makes War on Coronavirus: U.S. manufacturers turn their might from making cars to making ventilators.

By William McGurn, WSJ, March 23, 2020

U.S. manufacturers including General Motors, Ford and Tesla turn their might from making cars to making ventilators.

Of all the coronavirus nightmares, the one most haunting doctors, governors and hospital administrators is finding themselves without enough ventilators to go around. When a patient can’t breathe on his own, a ventilator moves air in and out of his lungs. For a Covid-19 patient in critical care, a ventilator can be the one thing standing between him and certain death. …

Read full story.

Video is part of a March 23, 2020, WSJ Opinion Piece by William McGurn

The Third Biennial Global Business & Interfaith Peace Awards — Held in Tandem With Paralympics —  Will Have Virtual Awards in 2020 and Tokyo Awards in 2021.

Veteran International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound told USA TODAY Sports on Monday afternoon that the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games are going to be postponed amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“On the basis of the information the IOC has, postponement has been decided,” Pound said in a phone interview. “The parameters going forward have not been determined, but the Games are not going to start on July 24, that much I know.”

Pound, a Canadian who has been one of the most influential members of the IOC for decades, said the Games will likely be moved to 2021, with the details to be worked out in the next four weeks. He said he expects the IOC to announce its next steps soon. Read More.

Brian Grim, President of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation, said, “Our Dare to Overcome business festival and peace awards in support of the Paralympic Movement, will go forward as planned whenever the Tokyo Paralympics are held. We stand in solidarity with Japan and the world in addressing this pandemic and emerging stronger on the other side.”

Grim said that there will be a virtual ceremony for 2020 recipients. He added that additional nominees can compete for the peace prizes in 2021, with honorees from both years being honored in person in Tokyo at the start of the Paralympic Games, once rescheduled.

The same applies to the Empower Women Film Competition, Grim said.

By Brian J. Grim, Ph.D.

This is part of a daily blog by RFBF President Brian Grim highlighting positive business responses to the pandemic, and part of the COVIDxNOW Global Economic Leaders Consortium, which is seeking to deliver innovative solutions for COVID19

The current crisis is showing opportunities for partnerships that were not previously on many people’s radars, such as between one of the world’s largest food distributors (i.e., the ones who help Walmart and grocery stores keep shelves stocked), Lineage Logistics, and out-of-work NBA MVP Stephen Curry’s NGO Eat. Learn. Play. Read the story of how concern for feeding others led to a rapid and innovative Covid-19 response below.

Steph Curry And The Quiet Food Giant: A Partnership Forms To Combat The Coronavirus Crisis

Chloe Sorvino, Forbes

NBA point guard Steph Curry was probably the last person Greg Lehmkuhl thought of when he faced the threat of a widespread shortage of workers for his $2 billion food logistics business. But as coronavirus fears were racing to a fevered pitch he knew that his company was being thrust into the center of the crisis. He would need an army of workers to handle it.

Lineage Logistics, a mostly unseen giant of the food industry, touches some 30% of America’s food. That’s nearly 30 billion pounds of food annually including 4.7 billion pounds of poultry and 4.5 billion pounds of potatoes. It ships, stores or processes around 8% of the global food supply. Headed its way was the unprecedented demand triggered by widespread coronavirus lockdowns and Lehmkuhl, CEO since 2015, knew that even his 14,000 workers across 290 warehouses in 11 countries wouldn’t be enough.

Read the full story at Forbes.

By Brian J. Grim, Ph.D.

This is part of a daily blog by RFBF President Brian Grim highlighting positive business responses to the pandemic, and part of the COVIDxNOW Global Economic Leaders Consortium, which is seeking to deliver innovative solutions for COVID19

Epidemiologists’ strategy to combat the coronavirus is wide scale shutdowns, or social distancing; an idea derived from measures taken during the 1918 flu pandemic, which survivor William Sardo, Jr. described before his death in 2007.

Video is part of a March 20, 2020, WSJ Opinion Piece, What Victory Looks Like in the Coronavirus War: We can try to stop time until a vaccine is ready, but the result might be identical to defeat, by Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. Credits: Video: WSJ and Wonder Land; AFP/Getty Composite: Mark Kelly

by Brian J. Grim, Ph.D.

This is part of a daily blog by RFBF President Brian Grim highlighting positive business responses to the pandemic, and part of the COVIDxNOW Global Economic Leaders Consortium, which is seeking to deliver innovative solutions for COVID19

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Arthur Herman, writing in the Wall Street Journal, argues that America should take a page from FDR’s ‘arsenal of democracy’ and mobilize industry to fight Covid-19. What he doesn’t offer is the best how-to plan.

For that, the Disruptive Innovation business strategy developed by the late Harvard business scholar Clayton Christensen offers potentially powerful insights. Disruptive Innovation is a process by which a product or service initially takes root in simple applications at the bottom of a market—typically by being less expensive and more accessible—and then relentlessly moves upmarket, eventually displacing established competitors.

We are already experiencing this. As Matthew Dalton, Ruth Bender and Jason Douglas of the Wall Street Journal report: “Companies across the West, from a Kentucky distillery to a French bluejeans maker, are retooling to produce medical equipment for overloaded hospitals and slow the spread of the new coronavirus.

Christian Dior perfumes has started making hand sanitizer. A car-parts company is producing hygienic masks. Luxury hotels are becoming makeshift quarantine shelters. An earthmoving-equipment maker and other manufacturers are examining whether they can help make ventilators, the key life-support machines for people with pneumonia caused by the virus.”

The Clayton Christensen Institute outlines three key aspects of what makes a successful Disruptive Innovation:

by Brian J. Grim, Ph.D.

This is part of a daily blog by RFBF President Brian Grim highlighting positive business responses to the pandemic, and part of the COVIDxNOW Global Economic Leaders Consortium, which is seeking to deliver innovative solutions for COVID19

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Amazon to hire more than 4,500 people in Kentucky and Indiana in response to COVID-19

Amazon is expecting to hire more than 4,500 people in Kentucky and Indiana at fulfillment centers to meet the surge in product demand amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Ben Tobin (Louisville Courier Journal) Published 11:01 a.m. ET March 18, 2020 |

The Seattle-based tech conglomerate is opening 100,000 part- and full-time roles across the United States. The company also will give a $2 per hour wage raise for U.S. fulfillment center employees, who make $15 or more depending on the region.

“We are opening 100,000 new full and part-time positions across the U.S. in our fulfillment centers and delivery network to meet the surge in demand from people relying on Amazon’s service during this stressful time, particularly those most vulnerable to being out in public,” the company said in a press release.

As of Wednesday morning, the United States has surpassed 6,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and has more than 110 deaths.

Those interested in applying can go to www.amazon.com/jobsnow.

A megachurch has nearly 1,000 people tested for coronavirus in two days

Church of the Highlands, Alabama’s largest megachurch, hosted drive-through coronavirus testing at one of its parking lots in Birmingham on March 17.

By Sarah Pulliam Bailey (Washington Post) March 19, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

On Sunday, Alabama’s largest church stopped its in-person worship services. By Tuesday, it started hosting drive-through coronavirus tests in one of its parking lots.

In the span of just two days, doctors in Birmingham tested 977 people from across the state by using the parking lot and volunteers from Church of the Highlands, according to Dr. Robert Record, who is helping to lead the effort. The drive-through effort at one of America’s largest churches is part of a larger nationwide push for more information about coronavirus as more testing locations began to pop up this week.

Read full story on Washington Post.

By Brian J. Grim, Ph.D.

We are in unprecedented times. The price tag on the Trump administration’s proposed economic rescue package approached $1 trillion. It seeks to bail out not only industries and defer annual income tax collection but also to $1000 or more directly into the hands of each American adult.

And businesses themselves — reservoirs of resources and knowhow — face existential threats as commerce, trade and normal business are curtailed. McKinsey & Company now offer two scenarios, put simply, bad and worse. Others are looking for the U.S. economy to come back even stronger once the pandemic is stopped, including the COVIDxNOW initiative.

With this background, it is useful to look at a third sector – the faith-based sector – as an added source of national and global resilience.

Previously, our research has shown that religion annually contributes $1 trillion or more to the U.S. economy, with especially impactful contributions in areas such as substance abuse recovery ($316 billion), local congregational activities ($418 billion) and religious institutions ($303 billion).

Given these resources, how are faith-based communities responding?

First, many are foregoing and moving online their regular worship services and gatherings. Synagogues around the world are not holding services. The Vatican announced that all the Liturgical Celebrations of Holy Week will take place without the physical presence of the faithful, and that until April 12 the General Audiences and the Angelus presided over by Pope Francis will be available only in live streaming on the official Vatican News website. And it’s not just at the Vatican. For example the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore suspended all Catholic masses across the diocese. Prayers at mosques and other places of worship have been suspended in the UAE.

Some have gone even further. For example, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has cancelled all public gatherings worldwide. Church leaders announced on March 12 that worship services worldwide are temporarily suspended and that its twice yearly General Conference will be available only by video.

Second, faith groups are donating medical supplies and services at home and abroad, including to China. The Latter-day Saints donation to China, for example, included 220,000 respirator masks, 870 pairs of protective goggles and more than 6,500 pairs of protective coveralls sent on 79 pallets of protective medical equipment. And Samaritan’s Purse, headed by Franklin Graham,  just sent a DC-8 aircraft carrying an emergency field hospital and a team of 32 technicians and medical personnel from Greensboro, North Carolina, on Tuesday (March 17) for Cremona, Italy, to set up a triage operation outside a hospital there.

Third, a huge chunk of global health services are provided by faith-based institutions. As John Allen points out, “Globally, the Catholic Church operates 18,000 health care clinics, 16,000 homes for the elderly and those with special needs, and 5,500 hospitals, with 65 percent of them located in developing countries. It’s by far the largest non-governmental provider of health care in the world. Despite that staggering infrastructure, the reality is that relationships between those facilities and the institutional Church tends to be fairly loose, with leaders on either side often not thinking about, or talking to, their counterparts on the other.”

On March 11, 2020, a meeting to launch an online platform to collect and communicate information related to religious actors responding to the COVID-19 pandemic was held at the Berkley Center at Georgetown University.

Click here for a summary of the discussion. 

The meeting highlighted that “Faith leaders and communities are critical actors in the current crisis and there is a rapidly growing set of actions and statements. The need to engage religious communities is quite well appreciated by public health officials (national and international) at a broad level. There is, however, much room for specific measures to translate that awareness to practice.”