Interestingly, the conversation on your blog is so far among men. But by and large, the “internet” conversation has been among women – after all, we’re the ones who are (mostly) affected.

The central issue is that SGK was perceived to be bowing to pressure from one anti-choice / pro-life employee … and they momentarily lost the focus on keeping women healthy.

I would imagine that you’ve written many times on the importance of remaining true to one’s mission as well as brand. SGK forgot that.

As you know, I love giving the contrarian viewpoint. So I’ll keep that tradition here.

First off, (this point isn’t contrarian, just informational) … a couple of clarifying points of fact, from the American Religious Identification Survey (conducted by Dr. Barry Kosmin of Trinity College in Hartford, CT), published March 2009…

The “Nones” (meaning those folks who self-identify as having no religious preference, agnostic, or atheist) comprised 15 percent of the US population in 2008. (Full disclosure: I am in this category).

Total US Christian population in 2008 was 76 percent (25.1 percent Catholic and 50.9 percent other Christian).

For reference purposes, the same survey found that the US population was comprised of the following percentages in a few other groups that are much discussed in the media:

Mormon/LDS: 1.4 percent
Muslim: 0.6 percent
Jewish: 1.2 precent

Now about SGK/PP media firestorm:

I think the most interesting thing about how this whole SGK/PP issue played out is how vocal the opponents of SGK’s policy change were. The main issue, as I saw it, was about women’s health. By far the biggest portion of PP’s dollars go toward preventing unwanted pregnancies (contrasted with only 3 percent of their funding going toward providing abortions.) And in truth, Planned Parenthood prevents far more abortions than it provides. And yet, the anti-choice groups are focused entirely on this comparatively small 3 percent of overall activity. PP is a very visible organization, and they are engaged in something that is very polarizing. However,

SGK didn’t give money to PP in order to fund abortions. SGK has been reasonably apolitical since the beginning, and helped shape the public dialogue about women’s health by keeping their focus solidly on breast cancer screening, prevention and treatment. Their funding of PP was targeted at and used for cancer screening, something completely within SGK’s mission and purview.

From my perspective, screening for cancer heartily qualifies entirely as a pro-life activity. I mean cancer kills. A lot. If you can prevent cancer by early detection, you’re helping to save lives. I would think that, regardless of political or religious affiliation, we’re all “Pro-” saving the lives of women. PP is one of the largest providers of cancer screening in the US. Many of their clients are low-income women who simply would not get screening if it weren’t for the services provided by PP. So unless a group has something against low-income women, I would think that any group that purports to be interested in saving lives would be interested in providing financial support directly to those organizations who provide services to the neediest people in our country.

I believe there’s something in Matthew 25:40 about doing things for the least of us …

For any organization, I say the key is congruency. Make sure your actions match your beliefs and words. If they do, then defend your belief system with the correct words and be prepared to face various consequences as you stand up for your beliefs.

If you anticipate the impact and take action then you have managed your crisis.

And another example of point #4. Gap went through a little brouhaha over its logo recently. The internet HATED it. And they made it known to the point that Gap rolled it back and stuck with their existing logo. And then Gap surveyed their customers to see what they thought of the brouhaha. And by and large, none of them had heard a peep about it. I recall reading somewhere that a number of those surveyed actually liked the new logo.