CNX’s new philanthropy is hyperlocal and focused on returns
There is a new approach to giving at CNX Resources Corp., which announced a commitment of $30 million over the next six years to local causes that preserve and grow the middle class.
It’s a shift from its recent giving plan.
The oil and gas driller has spent recent years ramping down its charitable contributions — over the past six years, it donated around $4 million total — as it reconsidered its interests.
“In the end, we are still capitalists at CNX,” CEO Nick DeIuliis said. “It’s a rate of return. We look at what we need in terms of partnerships.”
Three out of four of its initial grants from the new program will go toward preparing people to be the kinds of individuals that an organization like CNX might want to have in its ranks.
Its corporate giving goals reflect the company’s unique approach to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategy. While other oil and gas companies have made commitments, or at least nods, to decreasing carbon emissions to net-zero, CNX has made no such pledge. In fact, Mr. DeIuliis has publicly ridiculed these efforts. Instead, the company has made the local region the centerpiece of its ESG strategy.
As such, CNX’s charitable map now sits at the intersection of three ideas: maintaining and growing the middle glass, a hyper focus on the Tri-State region, and addressing socioeconomic factors that keep people out of the middle class. Mr. DeIuliis said targeting the most disadvantaged ZIP codes inside Pittsburgh and in rural southwestern Pennsylvania will give CNX the biggest bang for its buck.
Readers of Mr. DeIuliis’ personal website, launched in part to promote his book, “The Leech: An Indictment of the Evil Sapping America, Depleting Free Enterprise, and Bleeding Producers,” may be familiar with some of the concepts, and even organizations, at the center of CNX’s new plan.
Mr. DeIuliis said his interests happen align with CNX’s. Or maybe it’s that after three decades — “my entire adult life” — spent at the company, his story is CNX’s story, he said. “Maybe it was not happenstance.” (Despite the book, website, and patriotic logo, Mr. DeIuliis said is not running for public office and never will.)
The things that CNX cares about range from food insecurity to the opioid epidemic to water quality, according to a company statement.
It has pledged to give $1 million to improve broadband access in rural Greene County.
In 2019, the latest year for which details are available, CNX listed contributions to some national foundations, UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Environmental Council, and a local hazmat team, among others. Its announcement on Tuesday included far less recognizable names.
For example, it pledged $400,000 to a new mentorship academy that Mr. DeIuliis announced last week.
While the details are being finalized, the program plans to recruit 12 high school boys — Mr. DeIuliis said he would prefer that a girls’ cohort launch when he finds a woman to lead it — who aren’t planning to head straight to college. They would meet once a month for a year, listen to speakers and talk about things like financial literacy and career options. Half would be coming from poor areas in Pittsburgh and the other half from poor rural regions.
What excites him about the concept is that people who wouldn’t ordinarily be in the same room as one other or with business leaders will establish a network “where they can send an email or make a phone call” to someone in a position of influence.
Mr. DeIuliis said he’d finance everything needed to start up the academy. CNX’s money would go toward scaling it up and routing its graduates into jobs.
CNX also will donate $100,000 to House of Life of Pittsburgh, a new nonprofit focused on helping people coming out of prison from reoffending. The Beaver Falls organization was formed by formerly incarcerated individuals and a former law enforcement official whom Mr. DeIuliis has known for years.
The CNX leader said he started learning about it and made a personal contribution to the cause. Then, he brought it to the attention of CNX.
The company also pledged $200,000 for the Jerome Bettis Cyber Bus Project, which provides technology to disadvantaged school districts. CNX recently formalized a partnership with the former
NFL star’s The Bus Stops Here Foundation.
Mr. DeIuliis said the ramped up charitable spending will come at the expense of other spending, such as “sporting events, boxes and suites.”
“This is going to score neutral from a budget perspective,” he said.