Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility at The Hollister Group

The Sustainability Initiative is an office-wide initiative to improve our understanding of climate change and to encourage behavioral changes to reduce individuals’ carbon footprints. Each week, employees learn about a sustainability issue and are challenged to make a small change to reduce their individual environmental impact. Challenges have included bringing reusable dishes to the office, drying your hands with only one paper towel, or reducing meat consumption. Many have said that this initiative has made them more aware of the way their personal consumption affects the environment, and has changed their behavior both in the office and at home. Read more about it on our website!

Environmental Sustainability

Softball Team
Hollister sponsors their own Co-ed softball team that plays every Spring, Summer, and Fall in/around the city of Boston through a variety of different leagues. Games recently have been played primarily in the Boston Common and Teddy Ebersol Fields, with the occasional game played in Cambridge. We play once a week for 5-6 weeks each season. Everyone is encouraged to play – whether you’ve never picked up a ball or if you’ve played for the Red Sox, it doesn’t matter! It is a great way to meet and build stronger relationships with peers across all divisions of Hollister.

Community Impact and Philanthropy

Community is the heart of Hollister. It is our compass and it is what fueled Kip's passion for founding the business over 30 years ago. At Hollister, we believe that when we give back to and engage with the community, we grow stronger together. We see giving back as essential.

Hollister’s Philanthropy Committee plans and executes the company’s organized charity and volunteer work. We focus on three main points when looking for opportunities for the company to give back to the community and those are: Workforce Development, Client-focus, and Team Building. We host 4 main volunteer opportunities a year (one per quarter).

Some of our favorite opportunities to give back include:
- Writing letters to residents at Compass on the Bay
- Hosting bingo at Boston Healthcare for the Homeless
- Sponsoring, preparing, and serving lunch at Rosie’s Place
- Assembling customized orders for over 100 children at Cradles to Crayons’ Giving Factory
- Preparing food for the unhoused at Pine Street Inn

Day of Service
Hollister places a strong emphasis on living in the present, while doing so completely in service of others. In addition to the many philanthropic events that we host and support as an organization, we also seek to support each employee as a leader in their own personal commitments to giving back. As an employee of Hollister, you are given one day of service per year to volunteer at/for the organization of your choice.

2024 Community Initiatives
We focused on co-creating the programs that are part of RecoveryWorks - a non-profit program at Massachusetts General Hospital, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, dedicated to connecting individuals who have substance use disorders with employment opportunities and matching their level of experience and skill sets. Kip joined the Board of this organization early on and was fundamental in getting this effort off the ground. Hollister now serves as the primary provider of career counseling and workshops for all candidates in the program.
Kip assembled a team at Hollister to volunteer their time to educating, training, and developing workshops that support this community. She made the decision to expand what we do for a higher purpose, and to provide these services at no cost as part of our philanthropic commitment to the Boston community. Our team has the privilege of being connected to companies and recruiters who can really support this initiative. We have the network and the relationship with our contacts in the Boston community to be able to advocate for these candidates who we spend time coaching and getting to know upfront. Our commitment is to help these candidates best explain their story in order to reduce the stigma that is often attached to substance use.

Hollister provides the following services to RecoveryWorks candidates:
• 1:1 introductory meeting with Kip and a Hollister Recruiter dedicated to each candidate. This recruiter is a resource for the entirety of the candidate’s program participation.
• Hollister tailors the following services to each candidate’s specific needs and job search:
o Career advice
o Vocational assessments
o Resume drafting/editing
o Story crafting/telling
o Interview preparation/debriefing
o Job placement services
• Group support services designed to assist in candidates’ job searches and to provide support around developing self-esteem, confidence, and a positive mindset.

Further, When COVID-19 hit Boston in March 2020, Kip considered what we could do to serve others during this frightening and stressful time. We made a choice to keep service front and center at a time when we saw a significant drop in our business. We chose to focus our efforts on what we could influence. We developed a series of virtual programs – free of charge – designed to support our community, bring leaders together, and enhance and deepen human connection. We developed over 16 program offerings offered in excess of 65 free sessions via Zoom with over 750 registrations – everything from lunch & learns for organizations and teams learning how to adapt to a virtual world, to conversations with our CEO around Becoming Agile in Our Current Reality, Connecting During Crisis, Community Rising, Leading By Example, Leading Through Crisis, to mindfulness offerings inclusive of Managing Your Emotional State and weekly guided meditations led by Kip. We also hosted a virtual panel, Engaging Our People and Pushing Business Forward. We’ve since pivoted to provide more forward-thinking courses. We offered a virtual conversation with Kip on Imagination to explore the concept of imagination as a cornerstone of leadership and to learn the art of activating imagination and making innovation real.

Kip also started a podcast during this time, Well Being Walks, that is accessible through multiple channels. These podcasts focus on BEING human and what that looks like. This platform is a culmination of REAL conversations and stories from respected leaders and influencers who are exploring a different kind of leadership and how to live a soulful life that matters.

At the core of every offering has been an intention of service, mindfulness, connection, and engagement. This project exemplifies Hollister’s enduring impact on and commitment to serving the community. We are a people-first organization and care immensely about those within our organization and those in our surrounding community. We have dedicated an immense amount of effort towards supporting as wide of an audience as possible through these free offerings. The feedback has been so immensely positive that one client, after attending one of Kip’s sessions: Leading through Crisis with a Focused and Present Mindset, asked Kip to lead a global company-wide webinar which Kip conducted for an audience of over 350 employees. What we’ve found is that people were craving this space we created: a space to just be – to be vulnerably, to be with others, and to be supported. At the core of everything Kip does is an intention of service, mindfulness, connection, and engagement. Kip leads a people-first organization and cares equally about the people in our surrounding community.