The gospel according to Adam Smith – Spiritual Capitalism

Is doing good compatible with making money? It is if you practise spiritual capitalism. Art DeLorenzo and I were having a hard time connecting. He’s a 67-year-old retired financial adviser in the New York City area whose budding consulting practice keeps him from settling into an easy chair. I’m a journalist in San Francisco, perpetually on deadline. Several appointments we set were moved or missed, but we kept trying. Late one evening, as we seemed finally to settle on yet another date for our interview, DeLorenzo threw out a comment that would prove as valuable as anything he said in our hour-long phone call days later.

“Wait a moment.” DeLorenzo paused. “I could say 3 p.m., but the group I’ll be meeting with before you, they tend to run over. It’s just their habit, but I know this. So I’d rather not book you right up against them. I don’t want to compromise the integrity of my commitment to them.”

The details of one man’s business schedule might not seem meaningful at first. But in that moment I realized DeLorenzo’s deliberate emphasis on a few choice words—“the integrity of my commitment”—was a straightforward yet eloquent statement of a still-fuzzy but increasingly important trend: spiritual capitalism.

JCPenney Customers Round-up $1.3 Million for Afterschool Programs

PLANO, TX – J. C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE:JCP) customers are helping provide children in their own communities with access to life-enriching afterschool programs after donating more than $840,000 during the most recent JCPenney Afterschool Fund Round-up campaign. The JCPenney Afterschool Fund contributed $500,000 in matching funds to the Round-up, providing a total of more than $1.3 million for grants to afterschool programs in JCPenney markets.

Continued support for afterschool programs reflects JCPenney’s philosophy that “Every Day Matters” and represents a key component of JCPenney’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy as outlined in “JCPenney C.A.R.E.S.,” the Company’s first CSR report that was released this month.

During the 10-day Afterschool Round-up campaign in April, JCPenney customers had the opportunity to “round up” their JCPenney purchases to the nearest whole dollar and donate the difference to the non-profit JCPenney Afterschool Fund. One hundred percent of the donations collected at each store will be used to support afterschool programs in the store’s local community, providing customers an opportunity to help children and families in their own hometowns.