Highlights of Accenture's new report detailing outcomes of their survey of 30,000 consumers.

“I always remember, one of the first loans that I ever made was to a woman who was starting out a frozen hors d’oeuvres company,” says Riley, Executive-Vice President at Scotiabank. “She had some seed capital from her father and I remember thinking, ‘Wow, this woman’s going to make a go of it!’ And she did. She did an amazing job building the business. You knew that the commitment was there.”

KeyBank Real Estate Capital and KeyBank Community Development Lending and Investment (CDLI) have provided a total of $87 million in financing to Related Companies, for the acquisition and rehabilitation of more than 400 affordable housing units in Cincinnati, OH.

Celeste Phillips believes that working for someone else forces you to put your own dreams on hold. But working for yourself, she said, allows you to fulfill your dreams. That’s why she started Big LuLu’s Trucking LLC, a construction and hauling company in Pittsburgh. Before starting her own business, Phillips said she knew people who owned dump trucks, so she learned the business from them.

The Reclamation and Biodiversity Research Center at PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI) was established in 1995 as a way to restore the ecological function of the area near the operations known as the tailings deposition area. Tailings are the finely ground mineral rock that remain from the mining process after the economically valuable minerals have been removed from the ore.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) today announced 44 employees participated in the firm’s fifth ScopeAthon event this year to help 10 nonprofits build actionable plans to tackle a mission-critical challenge.

Last week included Giving Tuesday, a day when individuals, foundations and corporations are encouraged to support their favorite causes during the holiday season. Designating the Tuesday after Thanksgiving as a day of giving has been a hugely successful way of focusing attention on the wide variety of charitable institutions in the country, and it’s also been a great way of promoting the idea of giving on-line.

It is undeniably a divisive time in the United States with growing inequality, polarization of the political spheres, heightened racial tensions, and acts of extremist violence. We are all longing for greater empathy and tolerance. CECP is proud to mark the Day of Understanding by launching a new White Paper, Diversity & Inclusion in Corporate Social Engagement, as one step we, together with our companies, are taking to further embrace difference and build more inclusive cultures in our companies and communities.

ScottsMiracle-Gro Foundation environmental partners in Texas and Florida recently reported on their accomplishments in the past year. In addition to the normal challenges of engaging youth in coastal restoration, both program sites had to cope and adapt after experiencing severe hurricanes.

During the cold, winter months, Christina Harris is glad she isn’t forced to choose between heat and food for her family. Each day, her children, along with nearly 1,700 others in their area, get a hot meal through Kids Café, a program of Feeding the Valley Food Bank in Midland, Georgia. Watch the video.