Staying on mission

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stayed on mission. . .always.

His brief acceptance speech upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize illustates King's ability to stay on task no matter what his setting or context. 

Powerful words from a prophetic and heroic world leader. 

Taylor Branch to Dallas

The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture will host its annual Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration symposium on Monday evening, January 21, 2008 from 7:00 to 8:45 p.m. at The Belo Mansion. Central Dallas Ministries is very proud to be one of the community organizations co-sponsoring the event.

Pulitzer Prize-Winning author Taylor Branch will be the distinguished speaker. Branch's epic trilogy, America in the King Years, won him the coveted prize.

The title of Branch's lecture for the evening: "An Audacious Faith: The Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr."

Following his presentation, our own Gerald Britt will be one of the panelists leading a discussion of Dr. King's legacy and Mr. Branch's commentary. It will be a wonderful evening in honor of Dr. King.

The Belo Mansion is located at 2101 Ross Avenue on the Arts District side of Downtown Dallas.

Admission is by reservation only and costs $20 per seat, with school teachers receiving a nice discount at $10 per seat.

To register call 214.871.2440 or go online at http://www.dallasinstitute.org/.

If you are in or near Dallas on this special night, you should plan on attending.

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Responsible investing

Al Gore just won the coveted Nobel Peace Prize.

I am aware that Mr. Gore is a fairly controversial fellow. He did win the popular vote in the 2000 election for President before losing the Electoral College count. No reason to go down that path any further! This is not about politics or personalities.

Last week I opened my on-line McKinsey Quarterly to find an interview with Gore and his business partner, David Blood. I found this conversation most interesting and commend it to you.

Is there a way to do business with an eye and a heart for the social good?

In other words, can a person do well while paying attention to doing good?

Here's the McKinsey introduction to the interesting interview:

As McKinsey research indicates, executives around the world increasingly recognize that the creation of long-term shareholder value depends on a corporation’s ability to understand and respond to increasingly intense demands from society. No surprise, then, that the topic of socially responsible investing has been gaining ground as investors seek to incorporate concepts like sustainability and responsible corporate behavior into their assessments of a company’s long-term value.

Yet socially responsible investing has always been an awkward science. Early approaches simplistically screened out “sin sectors” such as tobacco. Subsequent evolutions tilted toward rewarding good performers, largely in the extraction industries, on the basis of often fuzzy criteria promulgated by the corporate social-responsibility movement. These early approaches tended to force an unacceptable trade-off between social criteria and investment returns.

Three years ago, former US Vice President Al Gore and David Blood, previously the head of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, set out to put sustainability investing firmly in the mainstream of equity analysis. Their firm, Generation Investment Management, engages in primary research that integrates sustainability with fundamental equity analysis. Based in London and Washington, DC, Generation has 23 employees, 12 of them investment professionals, and a single portfolio invested, at any given time, in 30 to 50 publicly listed global companies.

For the entire interview, check out the link below. You'll have to go through a simple registration process, but, in my opinion, it will be worth your time.

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Strategy/Strategic_
Thinking/Investing_in_sustainability_
An_interview_with_Al_Gore_and_David_Blood_2005

I'd love your feedback on this one!

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