The Boston Business Journal (BBJ) recently honored State Street, one of BUILD’s leading supporters, for its commitment to making the Boston community a better place. BBJ’s Top of the Lists highlights hundreds of number one ranked companies, a sort of “Who’s Who?” in local businesses. This year, State Street has been recognized as being one of the most charitable organizations in the Boston area. BUILD is proud of its strong partnership with such an innovative and generous company as State Street.
State Street is a global financial services company that focuses on asset servicing, asset managing and global markets and is the only publicly traded company currently headquartered in Boston. “Giving back to the community has always been a part of State Street’s value proposition,” said George Russell, State Street’s Executive Vice-President and Director of Corporate Citizenship. “We believe that we have an obligation and a responsibility to be a good corporate citizen.” State Street has partnered with organizations in the Boston area “to really get young people focused and ready to become gainfully employed and to become productive members of society.”
State Street’s commitment to public responsibility in the Boston area is “helping change lives, especially when it comes to those far less advantaged.” State Street provides a tremendous amount of support to the Private Industry Council (PIC), which serves as Boston’s Workforce Investment Board. State Street welcomes over 185 high school students into its corporation every summer through PIC’s summer employment program, which makes it the largest employer of young people in the greater Boston area. “They [State Street] are basically recognizing the talent of young people who haven’t been given much advantage in their lives until this moment,” added Neil Sullivan, Executive Director of Private Industry Council.
State Street also played a pivotal role in the launch of BUILD in Boston. BUILD is a four-year college success program that uses entrepreneurship as the hook to motivate disengaged and disadvantaged youth to get back on track academically. “State Street has such a strong reputation that when we [BUILD] are able to include a name like State Street amongst our top funders, it just speaks to a certain level of excellence and quality in the Boston area,” noted Ayele Shakur, Regional Executive Director for BUILD in Boston. Right now, BUILD is serving around 104 students and “those students really need the support of strong players…who are invested in the mission of helping them not just to finish school, but actually go off to college and lead successful lives.” BUILD’s strong partnership with State Street means giving Boston high school students just that kind of support.
State Street’s commitment to the Boston community does not end there. State Street’s employees are as equally motivated and passionate about giving back to their communities. The company launched the Global Outreach Program to foster volunteerism by encouraging employees to devote two full business days a year to their local communities. In 2010 alone, State Street employees logged 78,000 volunteer hours in local non-profits. “We care about this city [and] we care about the Commonwealth and it’s been a part of our DNA since the foundation was established in 1977 to give back and be proactively involved in our local communities,” said Mr. Russell in BBJ’s special segment. State Street, he added, is “not doing this just to be at the Top of the Lists; we are doing this because it is very much a part of who we are. It is part of our culture of giving back.”
