The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth will commit $26 million to a new partnership with the Aspen Institute that will work to ensure more people benefit from gains in the economy and that technology-driven growth doesn’t leave people behind.
Shamina Singh, the center’s president, said the effort will likely focus on the future of work in an increasingly automated age and hopes to help people gain a sense of financial security. The effort, called the Aspen Partnership for an Inclusive Economy, will also promote “values-based” executive leadership that looks beyond quarterly earnings and works to improve people’s lives, Singh said.
The partnership is an attempt to more heavily involve corporations in solving social problems and to show that to succeed, businesses must have a “decency quotient,” Singh said.
The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth is the financial service giant’s philanthropic subsidiary.
Growing Movement
The Mastercard commitment follows a statement signed in August by 181 members of the Business Roundtable that redefined the purpose of a corporation to include improving society, benefiting employees, and protecting the environment, not just adding value for shareholders.
“We’re definitely at an inflection point,” Singh said. “The tools and the tactics and the talent are all here. The question is how are we going to apply those things to big problems?”
The partnership promises “bold new proposals” from Aspen experts to promote inclusive growth.
Separately, the Mastercard Center released an interactive map that compares economic indicators, such as affordable housing, school enrollment, and small-business loans in the nation’s Opportunity Zones. The maps provide an “inclusive growth score” to each of the zones, which were created in the 2017 tax overhaul and give investors in those areas a tax break.
Billions Unused
The Mastercard center also announced a $7.5 million commitment, split between it and the Rockefeller Foundation, which will provide $5 million, to Benefits Data Trust, a Philadelphia nonprofit that helps people secure public benefits they are entitled to. The five-year grant, the Opportunity Zone map, and the Aspen partnership were announced at the Global Inclusive Growth Summit held Monday in Washington.
Raj Shah, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, told the assembled crowd that many Americans are not claiming public benefits that could help them succeed.
“Even though dedicated public programs can help them move up the ladder of opportunity, tens of millions of eligible Americans are not enrolled,” he said. “Some may get overwhelmed by the complicated process and policies involved. Others are turned off by the cruel, often racial, stigmas that have plagued us for decades. But whatever the cause, the effect is tens of billions of dollars that go unused every year.”
The announcements at the meeting suggested a new attitude among global businesses, suggested Ajay Banga, Mastercard’s president. It is impossible to “wave a magic wand” and make businesses forget the profit motive, he said.
“You’ve got to make a profit,” he told the crowd. “If you don’t make a profit, you don’t exist. You’ve got to win in business to see tomorrow morning.”
But corporations are stocked with talent and have a great deal of wealth at their disposal. Ensuring economic growth for a long time to come, for as many people as possible, will require business to get more involved, he said.
Said Banga: “The problems of inclusion are too big for philanthropy to solve alone.”
Alex Daniels covers foundations, donor-advised funds, fundraising research, and tax issues for the Chronicle. He recently wrote about philanthropy’s attempts to save democracy and about a $100 million effort to use data to improve health care in poor countries. Email Alex or follow him on Twitter.
