Giving Back

Milton Friedman, the late well-known American economist and statistician, advanced many economic and market theories is his life, winning him the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1976. One of his more controversial theories was known as the Friedman doctrine or the “shareholder theory.” The gist of this theory is that corporations don’t have any sort of social responsibility to the public, only to its shareholders. 

The doctrine and its offshoots have prompted many discussions in the halls of corporate America since Friedman published it in The New York Times in 1970 under the title: “A Friedman Doctrine: The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits.” 

I worked at Home Depot for 11 years, and I can tell you there were no debates or discussions about the Friedman doctrine, because it ran completely counter to the company’s DNA as established by its founders nearly 50 years ago. 

Those founders created a set of eight values that appear on every orange apron its half a million employees (known as “associates”) wear, and in every breakroom in its more than 2,000 stores. Three of those values have nothing to do with business, shareholders, or profit, and they are: Doing the Right Thing; Respect for All People; and Giving Back to the Community.  

Of course, Home Depot is a publicly traded company with a responsibility to deliver shareholder value, which is also one of its values. But it’s not the company’s only responsibility and never has been. 

Last week, those values were on full display when The Home Depot Foundation marshalled more than 700 volunteers and $500,000 in charitable funding to refurbish Winterberry Park and Veterans Community Park. I was fortunate to spend some time with my former colleague Erin Izen, who is now the Executive Director for The Home Depot Foundation.  We served on the foundation board together when I was there, and after reminiscing and catching up, we sat down at Veterans Community Park to talk about the foundation, its focus on veterans, and why the company’s values are so critical to its culture. Here’s a transcript of our conversation, edited for length. I hope you enjoy it.(And since this is an opinion column, my opinion of the Friedman doctrine is that it doesn’t really reflect how most businesses, big and small, view their role in the world, thankfully.) 

Stepping back from today’s events, can you explain why Home Depot is so committed to veterans’ causes? 

It’s literally in the fabric of our culture. One of our founders was a veteran, so supporting veterans has always been a priority for us. We have 35,000 orange-blooded associates that are either veterans or in military families, so it’s personal for us. In 2011, veteran homelessness was at a critical point and we realized we wanted to lean in. In that time, we’ve invested $650 million in veterans’ causes, are on a path to $750 million by 2030, and have touched 65,000 veteran living spaces. 

Can you summarize some of the specific ways the foundation aids veterans? 

The foundation focuses on three things: veterans’ housing, skilled trades and training, and disaster response. Of the three, veterans’ housing is by far our largest investment, and we really want to make sure every vet has a safe place to call home. We do that through critical home repairs, helping people age in place, building specially adapted smart homes for catastrophically wounded veterans, among other efforts. It runs the gamut of creating spaces and then making sure that the spaces they have work for them. 

I noticed that a few of veteran nonprofits we were funding back when I was there, like Tunnel to Towers and Team Rubicon, are still part of your funding stream. Can you explain the role of such partners in how you go to market? 

We have 21 national partners and thousands of local partners through Team Depot (the company’s army of associate volunteers). With our partners, we don’t just give money and walk away. We really try to look for the root cause of problems together, the systemic issues, then innovate alongside them to make critical, fundamental change. An example is Team Rubicon. When we first started funding them, they were a tiny little organization and now they’re an American powerhouse. We’re working with some larger housing groups, trying to find out what’s keeping veterans from being housed. For example, a lot of landlords view renting to veterans as risky. So, we come in and cover the first and last month’s rent and security deposit. We’re opening new paths for veterans to be able to get homes that weren’t open to them before. We really try to identify the pain points causing the issue and solve it. 

Your company volunteers are referred to as “Team Depot,” many of them here today. Can you tell me why your associates are so critical to your success in your communities? 

Service both inside and outside the store is just part of our culture. Our associates love being involved in their communities and Team Depot enables them to do that in their local areas. Every store has a community captain, and every store does Team Depot projects. We work to make sure they have what they need to enable their giving back. 

One truly special part of Home Depot’s culture is The Homer Fund, the internal charity funded by associates for other associates to help in times of need. How’s that going? 

The Homer Fund is our secret sauce, started by our founders over 25 years ago, and over that time, we’ve helped nearly 200,000 associates with nearly $300 million in hardship grants. These include things like funeral expenses if they lose a family member, car repairs if their car breaks down and they can’t get to work, disaster situations that cause evacuation. Anything that comes unexpectedly and hurts our hourly store associates, The Homer Fund steps in to take care of it. 

Path to Pro is a trade skills training and placement program the foundation launched in 2018. What was the impetus for that? 

We realized that the skilled labor gap was only growing, along with the impact on our nation and economy, so we launched Path to Pro nationally, which is essentially LinkedIn for the trades built on our pro contractor loyalty program. Anyone who wants to work in the trades can get hired by our pros and it’s really helping generate the stickiness and excitement needed to get people into careers in the trades. Just last week, the program went viral when an Instagram influencer heard about our program, thought it was cool and posted about it. Over the last five years, we’ve had about 74,000 people join the network. We got 42,000 new candidates just last week! It just shows when you get the right message in front of the right audience, it really resonates. 

Erin, your nametag says, ‘military spouse,” meaning you have a personal connection to the cause. How has that influenced your work in giving back to veterans? 

Incredibly. I met my husband at a Team Depot event in 2005 when he was in Home Depot’s military fellow program at the time. He’s since left the military, had service-related lung cancer and went through a really difficult transition out of the military. The only reason I’m not one of these families we’re helping is because of my career with Home Depot and having these wrap-around services we need that not everyone gets. So, I’m personally very passionate about it and driven to make sure that other veteran families like mine get taken care of. 

Last question for you, Erin. How much do you love your job? 

Oh my gosh, it’s the best job in the whole company. I’ve been in all areas of the business, and this was always my side hustle for the longest time. To have this as my full-time job is the best and I couldn’t imagine a better job for myself. I’m proud and thankful just to be a part of it and support the team that does all this great work.