| Shawn Lollie (right) |
Since its early days, Ford Motor Company has been a leader in encouraging and setting the stage for empowering the African-American community. From its founder, Henry Ford, hiring George Washington Carver as a consultant more than 70 years ago, when it was unpopular to do so, to Ford promising $5 a day for all of his workers when most Blacks were earning less than $5 a week, the company‘s diversity efforts have been apparent.
Shawn Lollie, multicultural marketing manager for Ford, punctuated the company’s history of inclusion and community by communicating its passion for philanthropy recently at Steve Harvey’s eighth annual Hoodie Awards in Las Vegas. During the Ford presented awards – which recognize local businesses, schools, and organizations in U.S. neighborhoods for their community leadership and contributions – Lollie discussed how giving back is an important component of Ford’s commitment to bolstering the African American community.
“Giving back to the community is part of Ford’s DNA,” she said. “Ford has been doing this for 100 years … We go back to Henry Ford providing jobs to folks that came from the South to the Motor City on assembly lines, getting their lives together and just giving back is so tremendous. Sometimes it’s not all about selling cars … It’s about getting out there with the folks that buy our product … We give back through education; we gave $5k scholarships to two students in New Orleans; we participated in Steve Harvey’s mentoring program and his foundations gala earlier this year … So, giving back is part of Ford and we’re here to stay and continue to do that.”
When asked why the Hoodie Awards was one of Ford’s chosen platforms to demonstrate its philanthropic efforts, Lollie responded, “Why not? This gets me out into the community. I was able to go to our Ford booth and speak to the folks that buy our cars and also to those that don’t. And those that don’t, I want to know why so I can take that message back to our engineers so we can develop products that folks want.”
Diversity in its workforce, as well as among its automobile dealers and suppliers, also continues to be a priority for Ford. Minorities make up 23.2 percent of Ford Motor Company’s employees and 14.7 percent of its officer and managerial personnel. But the story doesn’t end there: the company has more African American automobile dealers than any other automobile manufacturer.
