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When Mary Kay Ash founded her company 46 years ago, she wanted to enrich the lives of women around the world by providing them with the opportunity to achieve success on their own terms.It’s no wonder that when the time came to formalize the company’s charitable efforts through the formation of the Mary Kay Foundation, Mary Kay chose two causes that affect millions of women every day: women’s cancers and domestic violence. “Mary Kay originally focused the foundation’s effort on cancers affecting women,” says Crayton Webb, Director of Corporate Communications for Mary Kay Inc. “Under Mary Kay’s direction, the foundation expanded that to domestic violence prevention.”
Since its inception in 1996, the foundation has awarded $15 million in grants to fund research on cancers affecting women and $18 million to help end domestic violence. “When it comes to domestic violence, that is an issue that can cripple a family,” Webb says. “I can’t think of anything else that could hinder the future development of the progress of a woman in her career or her personal life and certainly her children. The Mary Kay Foundation has a dedicated commitment to helping end domestic violence.”
The Facts about Domestic Violence |
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Nearly one in four women in the United States reports experiencing violence by a current or former spouse or boyfriend at some point in her life. Approximately one in three adolescent girls in the United States is a victim of physical, emotional or verbal abuse from a dating partner. The United Nations Development Fund for Women estimates that at least one of every three women globally will be beaten, raped or otherwise abused during her lifetime. In most cases, the abuser is a member of her own family. *Data from http://www.endabuse.org. |
Today, domestic violence is the No. 1 cause of injury for women ages 15 to 44 and is widely recognized as a significant issue for women and children. However, as Webb points out, it wasn’t always that way. “It’s hard to believe that just 14, 15 years ago, when you would talk to a police officer or a district attorney about domestic violence, a lot of them around the country would say, ‘Well, that’s a domestic issue. Our resources are tapped. We’re working on murders and rapes and robberies. We really don’t have time to get into personal matters.’ ”
Through efforts of organizations like the Mary Kay Foundation, more resources are now earmarked for domestic violence prevention. The foundation targets Congress and other legislative bodies by “Lobbying for Good” to gain support for its efforts—sending government relations personnel, and sometimes independent beauty consultants, to Washington D.C., and individual state capitols to lobby for legislation that supports a variety of causes, like police action in domestic violence cases.
Lobbying efforts included the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in 1994, which enhanced investigation and prosecution of the violent crimes perpetrated against women, increased pretrial detention of the accused, imposed automatic and mandatory restitution on those convicted, and allowed civil redress in cases prosecutors chose to leave unprosecuted.
“We lobbied for the VAWA,” says Webb, “and we’ve gone back every year since to lobby for appropriations.” The Mary Kay salesforce took an active part in the lobbying effort, parking their trademark pink Cadillacs in front of both local and federal offices to bring attention to the issue.
As a company, Mary Kay Inc. has a global commitment to help change the lives of women and children around the world. And consumers want to see that commitment. “Consumers expect that the companies they’re going to do business with or the people that they’re going to buy from are doing well by doing good,” Webb says. “If you have a choice between Product A and Product B, and they’re about the same price and same quality, and you know Product A is made by a company that’s giving back but don’t know anything about Product B, you’re going to buy Product A.”
The foundation not only works to change laws, but also helps victims of domestic violence with the basic necessities of life. Often, women stay in abusive situations because they feel they have nowhere to turn. To mitigate this, one of the Mary Kay Foundation’s most significant contributions is to domestic abuse shelters.
Every October, for Domestic Violence Awareness Month, the foundation donates $3 million in grants to domestic violence shelters in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands; 150 grants of $20,000 each go to shelters across the United States during that month. “It’s an astounding commitment, especially in light of the economy,” Webb says. “These shelters provide safety for women and their children. This money keeps their doors open.”
In fact, says Webb, the foundation did a survey involving 1,600 shelters that received grants and found that the state of the economy measurably impacted cases of domestic violence. “There is a clear connection between the downturn of the economy and increases in cases of domestic violence,” Webb says. “This research will be important for shelters and domestic violence prevention organizations to use in grant applications and fundraising requests, because with the downturn in the economy, not only are instances of domestic violence going up, but funding sources for the shelters and the folks who are doing good work is going down.”
The foundation doesn’t stop with providing shelter, either. Women who escape violent situations often leave with nothing and are forced to find work, sometimes for the first time. To help them succeed, the foundation partnered with Suits for Shelters, which provides battered women with professional attire, enabling them to succeed in the workplace. When Mary Kay Inc. called on its salesforce to pitch in, the response was overwhelming. “Members of the independent salesforce packed their suitcases full of suits,” Webb says. “At our leadership conference in January 2009, we collected approximately 4,000 articles of clothing.”
The company’s mission to eradicate domestic violence includes education, and not just education for adults. The foundation realized that the abuse cycle begins much younger than adulthood and decided to focus on teens, seeing them as the next generation of both domestic violence victims, perpetrators and, hopefully, survivors.
“When we began seeing the statistics that one in three teenagers will deal with some kind of physical, sexual, emotional or verbal abuse in a relationship, we were astounded,” Webb says. “Domestic violence prevention is essential. The best way to stop domestic violence is to stop it before it starts.”
The foundation approached high schools about including curricula on healthy dating relationships and partnered with Break the Cycle, an organization that empowers youth to recognize and end domestic violence. Together, the organizations created a DVD geared toward teens. “Break the Cycle has this curriculum that is meant to go into the schools to help teachers and schools talk about healthy dating relationships and teen dating violence prevention,” says Webb, “and we were the founding sponsor of their ending violence DVD, which put that curriculum in a multimedia format.”
The salesforce is actively involved in the movement, too. For example, Carol Stoops, wife of Oklahoma University’s football coach Bob Stoops and a Mary Kay Independent National Sales Director, contacted the Mary Kay Foundation to express her interest in helping her home state. In February 2009, 40 Mary Kay independent beauty consultants and three Independent National Sales Directors, along with representatives from the Mary Kay Foundation, the Oklahoma Coalition to End Domestic Violence and Break the Cycle, lobbied the Oklahoma Legislature to require Oklahoma schools to offer some kind of curriculum to help end teen dating violence in that state.
Mary Kay Inc. and the Mary Kay Foundation also co-sponsored two PBS documentaries on domestic violence. The first documentary, underwritten by the Mary Kay Foundation and Mary Kay Inc., was called Breaking the Silence: Journeys of Hope, and first aired nationwide in the fall of 2001. The program raises awareness about domestic violence, focusing on women of strength and their journeys from victim to survivor. The second focused on the impact of domestic violence on children and was Breaking the Silence: Children’s Stories.
The effects of domestic violence remain long after women and children escape the situation. The Mary Kay Foundation is always looking for ways to help the victims heal from both the mental and emotional effects of abuse.
One unique initiative is the Nature Explorer Classroom, outdoor learning spaces designed to include nature in children’s daily lives. The Arbor Day Foundation approached the Mary Kay Foundation to discuss building these classrooms at domestic violence shelters, because being outdoors after a violent incident has been proven to help children heal more quickly. The Mary Kay Foundation is sponsoring five Nature Explorer classrooms in the five states where it has a physical corporate presence, including Texas, California, Illinois, Georgia and New Jersey. “Employees in those five areas will have the opportunity to do an annual or biannual spruce-up at the classroom,” Webb says.
The company anticipates that all five classrooms will be completed by September of this year.
In keeping with the times, the foundation has embraced the Internet and social media to help educate consultants and consumers about domestic violence. The online initiative includes a petition (at http://www.enddatingviolence.com) asking lawmakers nationwide to make teen dating violence prevention and awareness programs mandatory in schools. The petition has been signed by more than 15,000 people to date. Another aspect involves the social-media site Facebook. The foundation created an application, called Kiss Domestic Violence Goodbye, which allows users to send kisses in two lipstick colors.
In 2008, the company launched its first ever global cause-related marketing program, called Beauty That Counts, which includes the Facebook initiative. In the United States, the Mary Kay Foundation was a significant beneficiary of last year’s Beauty That Counts promotion, which designated the proceeds from the sale of a lipstick for domestic violence prevention programs. “The 2009 Beauty That Counts effort takes a dollar from the sale of two lipsticks this year, Pink Passion and Gingerbread, and it goes to the Mary Kay Foundation in its efforts to end domestic violence,” Webb says.
So far, the application has sent more than 500,000 kisses.
Webb describes Mary Kay’s commitment to philanthropy as part of its DNA and insists that, despite the economy, the foundation is as committed as it’s always been. And it’s reaching as many lives as possible, even offering links to other charities to provide women with everything from much-needed cash to escape a hazardous situation to advice on how to recognize that a woman or child is in danger.
“For women and children, it’s all aspects of what they might be dealing with that’s difficult in their life, whether they have a need for school supplies or for professional clothing, whether they’re in an urgent situation where they need help from the domestic shelter or whether they’re in a very hopeful situation,” Webb says. “This is a commitment that we take very seriously.”
The commitment extends to every part of the world where Mary Kay does business. Mary Kay China, the company’s largest international subsidiary, has domestic violence as one of its signature issues as well. Mary Kay Latin America, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina are all involved with their own domestic violence initiatives, and Mary Kay Muldova supports an organization that helps prevent the trafficking of women.
Mary Kay Ash herself said: “The success [of Mary Kay Inc.] is much, much deeper than just dollars and cents and buildings and assets. The real success of our company is measured to me in the lives that have been touched and given hope.” Through the Mary Kay Foundation and the company’s other charitable initiatives, that success is immeasurable.
Webb says that the foundation helps keep Mary Kay’s legacy alive. “This is what we do,” he says. “This is part of who we are, and it’s important to our independent salesforce. It’s important to our employees, and it was important to Mary Kay Ash.”
