Why Internships And Giving Back Matters

I don’t talk enough about it, but one of the things I love most about LOOMIS is that our circle of concern as a company and as individuals is far greater than ourselves. We aren’t anything close to perfect, of course, but our aspiration is always to operate in a way that honors all of our Stakeholders (see our Stakeholder map below taken from our Purpose book).

The Stakeholder orientation balances the needs of the entire business ecosystem for win-win outcomes all the way around. Traditionally, companies have privileged shareholders above all others. That’s the way most public companies operate and it’s why we hear so much from the business press about quarterly profits and increasing share price. Those are important pieces of the business puzzle, but too often they’re treated like the whole puzzle. If you want to learn just a little more about the Stakeholder orientation check this out.

At LOOMIS, we consider our community to be one of our most important Stakeholders. Because of that, when we’re asked about hosting internships, our inclination is to figure out how we can offer them. We really got our college internship program right last summer and we’re making it even better this year.

We’ve also been participating in the Richardson ISD high school career internship program for the past several years and, thanks to the leadership of our Executive Creative Director Tina Tackett, we got that right too. It’s not easy to carve out the extra time and energy to lead interns and give them the kind of experiences that make a difference, but it’s important. We’d all want these experiences for our own kids and we believe it’s important that we offer high quality experiences for others.

Whether we have children of our own or not, we were all bright-eyed kids once looking for a little help from the world. I’m really proud of the way everyone here shows up for these kids, but it doesn’t surprise me because that’s who we are. And, I appreciate that very much.

MIKE SULLIVAN is president at LOOMIS, the country’s leading challenger brand advertising agency and a leading advertising agency in Dallas. For more about challenger branding, advertising and marketing, leadership, culture and other things that will drive your success, visit our blog BARK! The Voice of the Underdog and catch up on any of our more than 300 posts.

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