PPG commits $20M to diversity, inclusion efforts over next 5 years
PPG is committing $20 million over five years to diversity initiatives that the paints- and coatingsmaker says will address systemic racism and boost STEM and other education opportunities for minorities.
The money will be distributed to programs in communities nationwide where PPG operates, with at least 25% allotted to programs in the Pittsburgh region, where PPG is headquartered. The company plans to announce the funding Monday.
The investment will be made through its philanthropic arm, the PPG Foundation, and includes after-school programs for STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), career and mentoring opportunities, as well as support for social justice initiatives such as criminal justice reform.
Malesia Dunn, executive director of the foundation and of global corporate social responsibility for PPG, said Black Lives Matter protests that erupted worldwide last year after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, prompted the company “to be a bit more intentional with our giving and where it’s going.”
“There’s an urgent need for educating people around STEM — particularly Black people and other people of color,” she said.
Among the projects PPG will support is an initiative through Boys & Girls Clubs that provides training in artificial intelligence systems to teens in underserved neighborhoods.
PPG has funded the program at
Pittsburgh-area clubs and wants to expand it to communities beyond Pittsburgh, said Ms. Dunn.
Other programs include the launch of an after-school STEM program for girls at The Neighborhood Academy, a private school in Garfield that serves low-income, at-risk middle and high school students.
PPG’s recent grants to support diversity in Pittsburgh include $30,000 to The Advanced Leadership Initiative, an effort to increase the number of Black professionals in the region’s executive suites; and $15,000 to the Latino Community Center to buy laptops for students who needed them for remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Its commitment to education and other programs that benefit minorities and diverse communities comes as PPG undertakes more aggressive steps toward inclusion inside its ranks.
Last year, it hired its first-ever global head of diversity, equity and inclusion, Marvin Mendoza, who was formerly diversity and inclusion chief operating officer at accounting and consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.
PPG, which has about 47,000 workers worldwide including about 2,400 in the Pittsburgh region, is also ramping up support for its employee resource networks that represent minorities.
It plans to invest more in professional development, speakers and other activities for those networks and is tapping members for input on how to better support diversity, social justice and cultural heritage, Ms. Dunn said.
PPG last year expanded the number of resource networks from four to eight by splitting an existing council for minorities into separate networks for Black, Latino and Asian employees. It added networks for veterans and people with mental or physical disabilities.
It also has networks for women, young professionals and LGBTQ employees.
The company has fostered diversity efforts for more than a decade, said Mr. Mendoza, but its recent internal and external investments are “a much more focused, concerted effort” and align well with its corporate slogan, “We protect and beautify the world,” he said.
“The DE&I [diversity, equity and inclusion] space really, really ties to our purpose,” he said.
Efforts increasing at many businesses
PPG’s initiatives mirror those that many businesses have launched in response to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and incidents including the death of Floyd, a Black man, while in the custody of police officers.
Executive search firm Russell Reynolds Associates, which says about 50% of firms on the S&P 500 index have chief diversity officers, found in a 2019 study that 63% of diversity officers had been named to their jobs in the past three years.
Other Pittsburgh organizations that have added the position include Arconic, which in July named Tracey Hustad as vice president of inclusion and diversity; Allegheny Health Network, which in September named Margaret LarkinsPettigrew as chief clinical diversity & inclusion officer; and Port Authority, which in January hired Fonda Duse as director of diversity and inclusion.
Arconic, a metals producer based on the North Shore, two weeks ago said its charitable arm, the Arconic Foundation, which has $180 million assets, was expanding its mission to include social equity and environmental sustainability.
Its recent grant of $25,000 to the Latino Community Center, for instance, helped fund technology for virtual learning.
The move to broaden its philanthropic focus supports a companywide diversity and inclusion awareness campaign that launched in August.
The campaign encouraged Arconic employees to volunteer or donate to social equity-focused nonprofits through December, and the foundation pledged $25 for each act of employee engagement.
At the end of the campaign, the foundation donated a total $360,000 to six organizations that were recommended by Arconic’s employee resource groups.
Recipients of the funds included the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, the Global Fund for Women and PFLAG, a group that supports LGBTQ individuals and their families.
“Advancing social responsibility goals around the world starts with us, as individuals,” Tim Myers, Arconic’s chief executive, said in a statement.
Some diversity is apparent, some not
For Mr. Mendoza, 43, navigating diversity has been part of his life since the second grade.
Until then, the son of Spanish-speaking immigrants from Peru and Colombia lived in a diverse neighborhood near Newark, N.J.
When the family moved to a community where it was one of only a few Hispanic families, people started to point out his mother’s accent and his family’s skin color.
“I didn’t know until then that I was a different race and ethnicity,” he said. “Having a push and pull with cultures — school being very American and my home life very much of the Colombian and Peruvian
heritage — was pretty difficult to manage at times.”
At age 20, he came out as gay to his family and friends.
Most were supportive, but some friends, he said, “slowly drifted away ... all for one piece of information that didn’t change my personality or me as a person.”
He’s brought those experiences to his career.
“DE&I is very personal to me,” said Mr. Mendoza, who resides near Denver with his husband of eight years. “Some people’s diversity is very apparent in skin color or gender, but sexual orientation, veteran status or disabilities such as mental health may be invisible.”
Mr. Mendoza has promised to produce a DE&I strategy for PPG by the end of March.
He expects to use hard data to better analyze diversity within the company and its recruitment practices at all levels of the business including manufacturing facilities and paint stores.
He’s also anxious to dig into what he called the “heart side of data” — personal stories gleaned from employee surveys, interviews and focus groups.
Last year, after the death of George Floyd, PPG held sessions led by senior leaders in which Black employees and managers talked frankly about race.
“That’s huge,” said Mr. Mendoza. “It’s important for employees to see people who look like them in leadership and to hear them vulnerably share their stories and offer support.”