BILTMORE AREA PARTNERSHIP LUNCHEON
Tuesday, March 22, 2011

SPEAKER: Diana Wacker, Regional Sales Manager Vice President, National Bank of Arizona
SUBJECT: Corporate Social Responsibility

A few years ago, social responsibility was a common phrase in some of our large corporations. Some of us used it more as a PR jargon versus something we really needed to capitalize on.

A little bit of history. In 2008, Congress passed a Bailout Plan-the Dow closed below 9000 for the first time in 5 years-159,000 jobs were lost (most in 5 years)-our economy shrunk (1st decrease in GDP in 17 years)-Government Cutbacks/Budget Cuts-Our community left with unfunded basic Human Services-Major corporations canceled Conference and Conventions. We all know 2008, don't we; sounds very depressing.

So what happened was that individuals and businesses, which had been very busy taking orders and requests, running business or corporation had been as busy as they could possibly be, and I believe that many of us understood that it was going to depend on us as individuals to reach out and step-up and help our community recover.

So all of this grew and evolved in a focus on our Community and our local business practices. I believe that we began to see that we needed each other to be successful and depend on each other to insure that our community and its needs were taken care of at the Biltmore Area Partnership.

I believe that during this time we all changed. We are still concerned about the success of our businesses and corporations, but we acknowledge that our community must be very successful in order for our businesses to be successful. During a time when you would expect people to look inward, I believe that people were looking outward. They looked outward with a vision to make our communities better, to define a sense of place, and community and provide for a quality of life for their businesses and families, and for their future. I am fortunate enough to work for an organization that mirrors my core values and personal values. One of the key corporate values of National Back of Arizona is to be an asset to our communities, National Bank of Arizona strives to create value and make our community a better place to work and live.

We have an NBAZ in Action, which is our volunteer program. We have employees that donate money to that program. For example, we have a jeans day, where you can pay $5 to wear jeans to work. All the money goes to the program and it helps the families in the organization. So if someone passes away, we have money to help the family, if someone has a crises or a need, we are able to help that family or individual. That is part of what we do in-house for our employees. You will find our executives and our officers, like myself, focused and involved on several fronts, including but not limited to economic and community development, local philanthropy, financial literacy, and energy and sustainability programs. We have three initiatives that were launched during this time. In retrospect, I believe that they were born out of our, National Bank of Arizona's commitment to our community and our social responsibility as a corporation.

We got very involved in our nonprofits and got very innovations. We were able to partner with several nonprofits and capitalize off of what their core values were. Currently today we have been able to acquire 2600 nonprofits with about 150 million in deposits. By partnering and getting involved with the community and our non profits. Our women's financial group, I am sure most of you have heard of our women's financial group, we have women that we partner with who are in business and we have a lot of representation from here in the Biltmore area. You are all invited and you will be able to read about these meetings in the Biltmore Area Partnership email newsletter. They are free to attend and they are for business women such as you, and it is a way to connect with other business women. A way to help you grow your business. We also have our Green-Saving more than money program. If you are in the BAP area, I am sure you know about the Solar program and Energy efficiency program partnered with APS.

As it turns out, combining good business smarts with our socially conscious practices appears to have been a very beneficial move for the NBAZ and our communities. Our savvy business we know is that you want to work for a socially responsible company. Gen Y 88% Women and 82% Men believe that it is important to be able to give back to their community through their work environment. At NBAZ, we have volunteer opportunities and we also have Board Memberships. My bank managers attend community opportunities each month and our involved with the community and things that are special to their hearts. We do a lot with children in the inner city with education, those who don't graduate from high school, and we have a lot of sports programs we are involved with. We also do contribution matching programs. Partnerships with a lot of non profits.

Today's social conscious consumers prefer brands associated with good causes. Such as Stabrux / Ethos Water, GAP / Red line, Tom's shoes to children in South Africa. NBAZ has chosen to align with local causes. For our 25th Anniversary, instead of bonusing or giving to employees, they opted to give $25 back to their charity of choice, and we have 1000 employees. That is what we are about-give back to your local community. We also took donations and Paid it forward to local charities and non profits at the Biltmore and we are also in partnership with the Phoenix Children's Hospital and we were able to give them a large contribution as well. During the recession we were able to reappoint our marketing dollars, instead of doing advertising, gave to non profits and sponsorships. We have collaborative events such as with the BAP, SCORE, ASBA, Solar Phoenix, City of Phoenix, and Green Banking for example. Our business is not just transactional; we want to create relationships-that is what we are about-to provide a unique experience and make a difference.

Collaboration is the key to success - We can gain better results together than by ourselves. Collaboration increases opportunity, solves crisis, and addresses the needs of the whole. What can each of us do to make a difference in our communities?

Questions:

Evolution of The Taste of the Biltmore? We have put this one for 3 years now. I had a discussion with Deborah Bateman on how can we get the Biltmore Area involved. Started picking up flyers and newspapers from within the Biltmore area to see how we could partnership and that is how we came up with a Taste of the Biltmore. This year we had it outside in October and we had different partners-restaurants and they donated their food and their time to our cause in the community. Generated a lot of community involvement - everyone in the community is invited. We sold bands this year for some of our non profits so that is something else we did to help the community and non profits.

Ever think of charging an admission fee? We have not. Would rather charge for the bands like we did this year, and be able to give to the nonprofits.

What percent do you think actually purchased the bands? I don't have the percentages, I can find out.

Charging admission and having that go all to the charities? I could recommend that, but I don't know if the turnout would be as high.

Placement of where bands were sold? Better to be by entrance as it was hard to find this year, and if people are eating and drinking for free, they need to give back?