Page 84 - Everything I Know About Business I Learned

Everything I Know About Business I Learned at McDonald’s

the company’s tie to owner/operators, discussed earlier in the
chapter, or the system’s devotion to the customer, both in the store
and in the community at large.
Commitment to the community is evidenced by McDonald’s
corporate responsibility, perhaps most obvious in the Ronald
McDonald House Charities, whose proceeds support “homes
away from home” for families with seriously ill children receiv-
ing treatment at nearby hospitals and providing 6,000 beds for
families worldwide every night. Employees, owner/operators,
suppliers, and even customers raised more than $60 million for
Ronald McDonald House Charities in 2005.
Ed Rensi commented to me on his personal involvement in
establishing the first Ronald McDonald House in Philadelphia:
“I didn’t do the Ronald McDonald House because I thought it
was good for me. I did it because my heart cried for [Philadel-
phia Eagles tight end] Fred Hill and Fran Hill. My heart cried
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for them because their baby, their little three-year-old girl, had
leukemia and they didn’t know what to do. And I had some
great people around me who said, “We can make this work,’
and I said, ‘Okay, let’s make it work.’”
“Making it work” seems to be a prevailing theme on many
levels of the system when it comes to giving back. For example,
while McDonald’s Corporation kicked in $5 million to Hurri-
cane Katrina victims, Kathy May said employees personally
raised $75,000, and helped managers and crew find homes.
And that’s just one example—others include feeding emer-
gency workers at Ground Zero and after the crash of TWA
Flight 800 in Center Moriches, New York. Kathy described
these efforts as yet another instance of employees rallying
to help another, the way she and her colleagues raised money
for their coworker out on disability. “There’s the sense that
people take care of you,” she said. “And the public sees the
end result.”