The New Civic Engagement

I.
This article in The Atlantic about the Wayfair Walkout reminded me of Robert Putnam's work in Bowling Alone. Putnam noted the decline in social capital by looking at civic engagement, including people who write to their political representative or attend a rally.

All of these things have been declining since the 1950s, but maybe he's just looking in the wrong area. Maybe people's distrust of government has only directed their frustration from politics to private business.

From the article:

"This is a lesson that the large tech platforms have learned, in no small part because their employees have begun to hold them accountable. In the last year, workers at Microsoft, Salesforce, Google, and Amazon have all pressured their employers to revisit government contracts they deemed unethical. Now, it seems, less overtly political companies are also learning that every decision has political valence."

II.
It's weird to think that we're living in a society in which consumers are expecting businesses to reflect their values. This reminds me of Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms when they write about New Power models:

"Patagonia, for example, has a traditional old power business model, yet it stands out for its embrace of new power values like transparency. Some of these “cheerleader” organizations, such as The Guardian newspaper, are working to evolve their positions so that they not only espouse new power values but incorporate new power models effectively."

A conservative example would be the people who burned their Nike shoes after the company made Colin Kapernick the face of their new campaign.

III.
I work in higher education. My role is in fundraising. Most of our donors are Baby Boomers. In the coming years, a significant portion of our donors and alumni will be Millenials.

Eventually, our institution is going to be forced to take a side on some controversial scissor statement, something that ferociously divides people along sharp sectarian lines. Maybe we'll be expected to give hiring preferences to veterans. Maybe we'll be expected to lower admission standards for minorities. Maybe we'll be expected to have a carbon neutral footprint.

And those Millenials are going to want to know we are on the "right" side.

I don't think we're prepared for that. I know trying to placate both sides is futile. The question becomes: does choosing a side result in loyalty (donations) that is commensurate with disaffecting the faction we don't side with?