Community: A Core Value
Community is one of Marcum’s nine core values, and giving back to the communities in which we do business is one of the ways we express it. We buy our fair share of sponsorships and journal ads for charity events, of course, but we also host toy drives, food drives and drives to collect personal toiletries for the homeless. We field teams for charity races, serve meals at homeless shelters, and build houses with Habitat for Humanity. We also donate a percentage of proceeds from several of our “tent pole” events, such as the annual Marcum MicroCap Conference. We even stage our own annual walk-run for charity in Long Island, New York, called the Marcum Workplace Challenge, which involves nearly 12,000 participants and spectators and which has raised almost $700,000 to date.
Because virtually all of Marcum’s offices across the U.S. support charitable organizations in their communities, one way or another, we decided to bring all of these activities together under a national umbrella. We figure that way we’ll make a bigger impact by providing a firm-wide platform that all of our people can be proud of and get involved with. The Marcum Foundation, which originated in our South Florida region, rolled out to all Marcum regions in June, and already it has become a focal point of our corporate culture.
I am beyond gratified, not to mention proud, to tell you that 100% of our partners have enrolled as Marcum Foundation contributors. Team members in every Marcum office have registered for voluntary paycheck withholdings to support the Marcum Foundation planned giving program, and the numbers keep climbing.
As I mentioned in my last column, I am currently making the rounds to all of our regions, along with several of our partners and division leaders, for our annual State of the Firm presentations. I have made the Marcum Foundation a focal point of these meetings, to reinforce how excited I am by the tremendous response the Foundation has received throughout the Firm. In fact, Shaun Blogg, who chairs the Foundation in addition to serving as partner-in-charge of our West Palm Beach office, is a star of stage and screen at these gatherings (and I know a star when I see one).
It is extremely rewarding to know that Marcum people are taking to heart a core value that is so reflective of our business ethic. As we prepare to head into the holiday season, I tip my hat to every one of them, and thank them for their commitment to service excellence in all its forms.
