Bernie Marcus | A Legacy of Generosity

Founded to recognize the best in business, goBeyondProfit shines a light on leaders and companies that exemplify outstanding generosity through their leadership, operations and commitment to improving lives. Bernie Marcus served as a Founding Ambassador for goBeyondProfit and issued both a challenge to fellow business leaders and offered a road map for leading with generosity across a lifetime.

Bernie Marcus was a true pioneer in corporate philanthropy. In this interview, we look back at his foundational stories of how The Home Depot became one of the most successful and generous companies. Hear Bernie discusses the early days – when money was tight, and associates came to him with a big request to help a customer in need or how associates took action on 9/11 and during the Oklahoma bombing cementing The Home Depot’s role in disaster response.

These stories illustrate how Bernie Marcus’ early business decisions shaped The Home Depot’s commitment to philanthropy and forever redefined the role of companies in caring for their communities.

Interview with Bernie Marcus (2018)

The Origins of The Home Depot’s Business Generosity

Business generosity got started at The Home Depot by accident. One of our associates called about a lady who was very poor, and rain was coming through the roof in her house. She came in the store with $5 and she said, that’s all I have. There’s nothing else I have. I asked the associate what he thought we should do, and he said if The Home Depot supplies the roofing, the associates in the store will do the repairs. And so I said, yeah, let’s do it. And we did it.

Everybody in the store participated on their time off. This was not done on the clock. We gave all the materials, and they did all this work on their time off.

At the time, The Home Depot didn’t have much money. This was at the beginning. And believe me, for us to give the materials up on a roof was a challenge for us. But it paid off big time. That store became one of the most productive stores that we had.

We found it was a great builder of character in the store. People were proud of what they did, their accomplishment, they talked amongst each other. It was out of the ordinary.

Arthur Blank and I thought, why don’t we expand this and do this throughout the chain? Today there were 2,270 stores and every one of them is doing something like that. It’s the store that does it for the community that they’re in.

Now, on top of that, as the company, we’re very much involved with veterans who are coming back from the war, building houses for those who have lost their legs and arms, helping them with posttraumatic stress, training them for jobs at The Home Depot. This culture of doing something for the community is part and parcel of what The Home Depot is all about. And it’s the reason that people at The Home Depot feel so good about the company, feel proud of the company that they work for, respect their bosses a hell of a lot more.

What is the business value of generosity?

First of all, it’s good for your company and it’s good for you. It’s also good for the associates and the employees that work for you. I can guarantee you that if your company does it on a consistent basis, that productivity in your company will increase. I’ve seen it. I know it. I know that every year we lose people in businesses. It cuts down dramatically on that. People stay with a company like this. They’re proud to be part of it. They’re proud when they go home and they talk to their families that you’re not going to believe what we did today. This is not the bottom line that they’re talking about. This is something extraordinary. So our policy was never to advertise it. We never did. And most people don’t know we did it. And yet I point to it as one of the most successful things that we did at The Home Depot.

There’s no question about it. If you have people who love working at your company, that attitude means that they’re going to treat customers better. They’re going to treat our inventories better. They’re going to be better and more productive. And so how does that not help the bottom line?

How Do You Get the Word Out About Business Generosity?

CEOs are often depicted as inhuman human beings that do everything for profit, not doing anything for anybody else. I’ve known so many CEOs in my life, and I don’t know anybody that fits that mold. I think that the business community has to understand that we have to change it ourselves, within our companies.

There are millions of people working for companies all over the United States. If all these companies started doing the kind of things that they can do and show what the real nature of what business is all about we could have a major impact. Together, we can change the perception of people that work for you and people that just look at you as a paragon in their community.

Everybody that works for The Home Depot, they know it. We have over 400,000 people working for The Home Depot today. You think that the families of 400,000 people don’t recognize it, that their friends don’t know about it, all their acquaintances don’t know about it. So millions of people actually know about it without going out and having to pump our chest.

When Did You Realize That a Culture of Giving Had Taken Root At The Home Depot?

I think a major moment was following the Oklahoma City bombing. We had two stores in Oklahoma City at that time and I remember driving in and hearing about the report on radio. By the time I got to the office, I called both stores. I was very concerned that people in the store were involved or their families or friends, and I knew they needed counseling and the managers weren’t there.

To be honest, I was a little irritated by the fact that the managers weren’t at the store. And I said, as soon they come in, you better have ’em call me. And the day went by and it took hours before they called me. When they finally called me, I said, where the hell were you? And they both independently said, when they heard about the bombing, they loaded their trucks with emergency equipment, shovels, picks, hammers, electrical things, tarps, anything that a rescuer might need, and they were first on the scene.

They got there before the emergency vehicles got there and people were digging out of the rubble, I don’t know how they thought about it. They hadn’t talked to each other. They both said, I know we’re going to get fired because all that inventory is unaccounted for and nobody’s going to pay for it. I said, no, you are actually the biggest heroes we have. And that was a telling moment for us, for The Home Depot.

The same is true following the terrorist attacks on September 11^th. We were the only trucks allowed in the area. At the Pentagon, we brought lumber in to shore up the walls.

This has become a process with The Home Depot. If there’s a hurricane, if there’s a tornado in any area in the United States, The Home Depot trucks are ready to go. We have the equipment ready, and we send it there. The Home Depot lives this, and we do it every single day. If there’s a tornado somewhere in the United States, you can bet that The Home Depot people are on the scene and doing things like cutting trees down, helping people out of houses, helping them out of the flooded areas.

It has become a part of The Home Depot culture. This is part of a culture that Arthur and I envisioned, there’s something more than making money. There’s something more than becoming wealthy. We know the people we touch. We often see the people that we touch. And it’s heartwarming to know that you’ve touched a life, and you’ve changed a life for the better.

Why Did You Help Launch goBeyondProfit?

It’s important to look past your bottom line. There are other things in life besides making money. Maybe some of you are so busy with your business that you don’t have time for any of this, that you just are so focused. I have to tell you something, rounding out your personality may not be the worst thing in the world either.

Maybe it’s time for you to get your nose out of the books and start doing something that really is meaningful and can balance you as a human being, as a whole person. Somebody who is totally focused on their business ends up being a pretty miserable human being. They may be wealthy, but just not enjoying anything.

I hear this story over and over again. Constantly, wherever I go, I run across people who say, thank you so much for what you’ve done. And I say to everybody, don’t thank me. Thank The Home Depot, the hardworking kids at The Home Depot, the 400,000 kids that continue to do this every day, allows me to do all the great things I do with my philanthropy today.

I’m telling you this is good for your business. This will help productivity. This will help turnover. This has a big effect on your bottom line. And those of you who don’t give, don’t get it yet. Try it and you’ll get it.