Good morning, Mr. Jansen and ladies and gentlemen of ABB. It is an honor to be here with you today. It seems like only yesterday that I was cheering alongside ABB employees and their families at the soccer competition at Yale University during the 1995 Special Olympics World Games. What a wonderful 10 days those were!
ABB is a giant company. You build giant things. And today, you are doing a giant thing. Your commitment to our Movement will make ABB known not only as the number one company in the world for power generation but also as a number one company in the world for the inspiration of compassionate human beings.
Ten years ago I said, “Special Olympics is uniting the world.” That was a very grand statement to make. Critics attacked me. They said Special Olympics cannot presume to be “uniting the world”. But ten years ago we were in only 70 countries; today we are in 143. So, clearly Special Olympics has been in the “human generation” business, reaching more and more of the entire world. More importantly, however, is this: -- We will continue to expand until every person with mental retardation is reached.
How can Special Olympics do that?
There are 170,000,000 human beings with mental retardation. No program could reach all of those people, critics might say. Well, here’s the basis for thinking we might well be able to do what’s never been done before.
First: Special Olympics is the largest, amateur sports organization in the world with 1,250,000 athletes participating and 1,062,164 volunteers doing whatever needs to be done. All of that has been achieved in 25 years.
Second: Special Olympics is growing in size faster than any sports organization. By the year 2003, we may we have as many as 3,000,000 athletes, plus a concomitant increase in volunteers—maybe to five or six million persons by 2003.
Third: Special Olympics is the only amateur, sports organization which enrolls older people as well as young. People of all political parties, all nationalities, all races, all religions, and from every economic level, from poverty to wealth are welcome. No one has to pay admission or any other fee to participate.
Fourth: Special Olympics focuses the world’s attention on the number one disability in the world—mental retardation. Approximately 170,000,000 people on earth have mental retardation. That number is increasing, but fortunately, more and more persons of normal intelligence are working through Special Olympics to help all those people with mental retardation.
Fifth: Special Olympics includes and encourages the athlete’s entire family and in many cases, friends, neighbors, and the whole community to participate.
Sixth: Special Olympics operates hour-by-hour, day-by-day, month-by-month, and year-by-year everywhere. The sun never sets on Special Olympics! When all of us are asleep tonight, somewhere in the world there are athletes stretching and warming up for training sessions, competitions or even local or area games, or national games and now continental games. This makes Special Olympics an hourly event.
So, when I say Special Olympics is “uniting the world”, I mean that we are uniting people in a universal effort to provide continuous help to those most in need of our compassion and our assistance.
And, isn’t it ironic that, with your involvement, scientists, engineers, biophysicists- all the most intelligent people in the world, you will be working to support the least intelligent. Now, that is certainly something special.
Another example of the “specialness” of our Movement were the first-ever Asia-Pacific Games held last year in Shanghai, China. Fifteen nations participated. Not only were the games extraordinarily well-managed and fully supported by the Chinese Government, the Opening Ceremonies were witnesses by an approximate 121 million people throughout the People’s Republic of China via state-controlled TV.
Mr. Yan Mingfu, the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs said, “The Special Olympics Movement kindles the flames of life of the handicapped people. It calls forth a yearning for the true, the good and the beautiful. Pushed by the Movement, China has sent many sports teams of mentally (handicapped) people to participate in international sports competitions who have demonstrated their unyielding will and indomitable spirit. It is sport, Special Olympics sport that opens their closed heart, and makes them share and enjoy happy life equally like non-handicapped people”
No high-ranking official of any country has ever spoken more eloquently about Special Olympics than this Chinese official of a Communist country!
Twenty-nine years ago, in 1968, when my wife, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, started Special Olympics with 1,200 athletes in Chicago, no one alive, not even her husband, would have predicted the unprecedented success, worldwide, which Special Olympics has achieved. All of us together must be doing something blessed by God.
Just pause for 15 seconds.
Ask yourselves now if any other sports organization on earth has grown from 1,200 athletes in 1968, to 1,250,000 athletes in 1997. What other sports organization in history has achieved full-blown, Olympic status so quickly, and the right use of the very word, “Olympics”, in our official title “Special Olympics”? The answer is none.
What other sports organization now, or at any other time, has enrolled 1,062,164 listed volunteers in its work, in 143 countries!
What other sports organization has the unqualified endorsement of the leaders of the Communist China together with the Pope, John Paul II in Rome? Of Nelson Mandela in Southernmost Africa and the Eskimo Leader Augapak in the North Pole reaches of Alaska.
Why does the six billion dollar leader of American Business, Ronald Perelman, help us with Special Olympics alongside the 46,000 a year President of Sierra Leone? What non-profit organization was named “The Most Credible Charity in America” by The Chronicle of Philanthropy, the United States’ largest and most respected periodical dedicated to the world of charity?!
The answer—Special Olympics!
Now, let me ask you some questions which relate specifically to your business interests:--
What charity is operational in practically every country where you do business, and will be in every country of the entire world by the year 2000? What other charity has the support of the highest government leaders everywhere? What other charity can give you the entrée to those government and political leaders? What other charity can increase your employee morale simply by inspiring them to be involved in Special Olympics? What other charity can give you the opportunity to do something together with your local employees and their communities?
What other charity can reveal yourself as not only a successful company, but as one willing to give back to the local community where you are doing business? What other charity can find a way for the most intelligent and least intelligent to work together in a phenomenal “generation of the human spirit”?
No private philanthropy can do that for you except Special Olympics.
Why do big corporations get involved in Special Olympics? Some of them do so because it increases the bottom line, and meets their business objectives.
Stu Cross, a vice-president at Coca-Cola has this to say, “The worldwide reach of Special Olympics makes the program a perfect match for the global Coca-Cola system. Because it is truly grassroots, Special Olympics allows our bottlers to become involved on a local levels, and give something back to the communities in which we do business.
Others do it for different reasons. Take Otis Elevators. All of us have ridden in Otis Elevators. But, did you ever think that an elevator company would sponsor an athletic program? I never did! But, thousands of Otis Elevator Company’s employees have given countless hours volunteering for Special Olympics are part of their employee satisfaction initiative called Team Otis!
In 1995, J.P. van Rooy, President and CEO of the Otis Elevator Company, made a strong commitment to Special Olympics. He stated, “For companies and for the shareholders of companies, workplace giving is becoming a requirement; but that misses the most important aspect: the personal, individual commitment and involvement by employees themselves!
Otis is one of the world’s most global companies, with operations in all but a handful of nations. Annually, its 66,000 employees representing virtually every race, creed and color produce revenues of more than US $4.5 billion. It is the largest and most successful elevator company in the industry. Yet this company was a perfect match for Special Olympics. The reward for Otis will be in the hearts of its employees and the support of its sponsoring friends, customers and suppliers.”
To the astonishment of even the President of Otis, who made that statement, after their involvement in Special Olympics, an independent survey of more than 150 of the most recognized corporations in the world, found the ratings for Otis in all opinion categories improved by 10-15 percent over the previous survey. How did this happen?
Their employee focus group divulged the three-part formula: continued performance of the company and recognition of employee’s role, increased communications and Team Otis!
Team Otis employees said that they were proud to work for a company that had taken on the challenge of supporting Special Olympics for no other reason than the fact that it was the right thing to do. And they were proud to work for a company that had empowered its workforce to help Special Olympics when and where it could, without special approval and special permission. In fact, the company encouraged those initiatives.
More than 5,000 Otis employees, worldwide, volunteer their time to coach, train, fundraise, clean up after events, or anything else they can do to help. They now have Team Otis programs in 40 countries!
This is all pretty impressive, but don’t think that because we have the great support of Team Otis our job is done! There are 170,000,000 persons on earth with mental retardation, and we are reaching and helping only 1,250,000 of them. Our work has only begun.
We need Team ABB!
We are the only worldwide, comprehensive sports organization which rises above nationalism. Nor do we, thanks be to God, rank countries by the number of medals won by their athletes. We do not fly national flags or play national anthems, nor do we send away 80% of all our participants with no rewards at all, no medals or citations, for their efforts. Special Olympics builds people up! We don’t knock anyone down! Special Olympics rewards human beings, not nations! We recognize that we are all created by God, as one humanity, but we must struggle to achieve one humanity, under God, with liberty and justice for all! That may be the greatest challenge and goal for the 21st Century:-- Ours is not and must not become a Movement for power—not political power, not economic power, not egocentric power!
Our distinguishing characteristic must continue to be service to all with mental retardation, to all their parents and siblings, and to all who serve them in different ways—as businesspersons, engineers, lawyers, politicians, doctors, financiers, social workers, teachers, academicians, volunteers, nurses, board members et al.
What better way than by supporting Special Olympics do you send the message that not only are you involved as business people, but you are also here to serve the communities in which you live and work?
Almost everyone in Special Olympics volunteers! The more than one million volunteers I have mentioned are people who volunteer annually in the Special Olympics Movement worldwide! Less than 1000 paid employees manage the more than 1,250,000 Special Olympics athletes and Annual Games held in 143 countries. Volunteers make it possible for us to offer year-round athletic training for less than $120 per athlete per annum! Less than $120 a year! No athletic program comes even close to that cost-benefit record!
If you believe in fiscal responsibility, you truly get a huge “bang” for every buck given to the S.O.I.
With the continued help of corporations like yours, Special Olympics will expand our training programs, hold future Games, establish volunteer committees, and it will be only through your support that we can become the largest sports program in history, and the largest activity of any kind for the least respected members of our human family! We may well be the creators of the motivators of, the financiers of, the leaders of the greatest “revolution from below” in human history!
So, don’t be afraid to become infected with the Special Olympics Spirit. Just like the little boy in your advertisement who excites his grade school class by his hopes and dreams for the future, with his aspirations to change the world, we, at Special Olympics, too, want to change the world.
And where and how can we do that?
Everywhere, with the help of ABB!
