In the 1970s, between her studies at Marymount College and before joining Xerox Corp., Anne Mulcahy spent 18 months in Kentucky coal country with Volunteers in Service to America, whose slogan is “fight poverty with passion.”
Nearly 35 years later, Mulcahy is bringing the passion she honed with VISTA to Save the Children and its new infant health campaign; along with the extraordinary leadership skills she honed in the fight to nurse ailing Xerox Corp. back to fiscal health when she became CEO in 2001.
Call it Anne 2.0 ”“ after announcing plans a year ago to retire from Norwalk-based Xerox, Mulcahy estimates she got more than a dozen calls from various organizations inquiring whether she might cut short that retirement.
The appeal from Save the Children was the one that really caught her ear, with the offer of heading the Westport-based organization”™s board of directors and its host of causes, which include a new campaign to eliminate infant and child deaths in developing countries.
Mulcahy did not have to mull the offer long.
“I think they are extraordinarily good at what they do, but with the blend (for) passion about children ”“ that for me is powerful,” Mulcahy said. “For me, there was the belief that a lot of what I have developed over the last 34 years in business can actually make a difference here. I would never want to be doing anything that wasn”™t.”
As she is finding out, making a difference involves securing visas to many parts of the world unknown to the pages of her passport during her years working for Xerox ”“ if for no other reason than a quality copier is not a top priority in most of those locales.
Earlier this year, Mulcahy found herself on an hour-long hike through the mountains of Guatemala en route to a village, after an eight-hour drive to the trailhead. She has journeyed twice to earthquake-wracked Haiti. And this month, she flies to Afghanistan ”“ also marking a first, as in the first time she has ever visited a “hot” war zone.
In commemoration of Mother”™s Day, Save the Children ranked Afghanistan last of 160 nations on an index of “best and worst places to be a mother,” based on statistics analyzing the health and wellbeing of mothers and their children. The index and an accompanying report are available online at the Goodgoes.org website Save the Children created to support its $3 million campaign for infant health, in conjunction with the Advertising Council.
In Mulcahy, the charity gets a chairwoman Xerox valued at more than $10 million annually and one who appears bent on demonstrating her value to Save the Children and its stakeholders via pilgrimages and personal appeals. If VISTA”™s call to arms is “fight poverty with passion,” Save the Children has coined the slogan “Help one. Save many.”
In Mulcahy, the organization has found one who expects to do just that ”“ with the help of many others. If you are in Mulcahy”™s Rolodex, expect a call ”“ and don”™t be surprised to get one even if you are not.
In a survey commissioned by WomanTrend, 42 percent of women polled said they would be encouraged to give time or money to help save the lives of newborns and children in the world”™s poorest nations if they had a better understanding of what they could do to help; and just over half said they would volunteer their time to help save the lives of newborns and children in the world”™s poorest nations.
“I think there is probably more of an environment for volunteerism and giving now than there has been a while,” Mulcahy said. “I see this as an opportunity to get companies more interested in sustained giving, rather than being event-driven ”¦ We believe that the sources of potential contributions and activism in Fairfield County alone are extraordinary.”
