We’re proud to release our annual Corporate Responsibility report. The report describes the ways that we power prosperity, especially for those that need it most. Below is the letter I wrote introducing the report.
Everyone — no matter who they are, no matter where they live — should have the opportunity to prosper.
Unfortunately, that is not the world we live in. Around the globe, too many people struggle to make ends meet. They worry about their finances. And they are scared they won’t have the opportunity to achieve their dreams and live the lives they want.
Today, nearly half the people in the United States live paycheck to paycheck and 40% of Americans can’t come up with $400 in an emergency. And for those that have taken the bold step of going into business for themselves, the challenges are even greater. In the United Kingdom, 57% of small businesses go under within five years and in Canada, approximately 7,000 small businesses go bankrupt every year.
At Intuit, our mission is to power prosperity around the world. We are determined to use the collective strength of our products and our people to make the world a better place, especially for those that need it most.
Across our global platform, we are using the power of technology to help solve people’s most important problems. We are proud that our products, including TurboTax and QuickBooks, help our customers around the world make more money, with the least amount of work, while having complete confidence in their actions and decisions.
We also know there are important ways that Intuit can power prosperity that goes beyond our products. We are a mission-based, values-driven company and social responsibility is core to who we are. The passion of our people to give back drives our collective actions to help uniquely solve some of the pressing economic issues affecting communities in need.
We have set bold goals for how we will deliver on a mission through our products and our people. We’re committed to putting more money in our customers’ pockets and helping them to keep it longer — and by so doing double the national household savings rate for customers on our platform. We will help small businesses grow and prosper so we can collectively increase the survival rate of all small businesses on our platform, by 10%. When our communities thrive, we all thrive — and together we prosper.
I am honored and proud to be able to lead a company like Intuit. The activities detailed in this report reflect the enduring commitment of the people at this company to make a positive impact on the world. I am inspired every day by the passion I see in each and every Intuit employee to deliver for our customers and the communities where we all work and live.
I also know tackling economic problems is a complex, difficult path. While we are proud of the progress we’ve made, there is more work to be done to address critical issues such as job creation and environmental impact. So we will do what we have always done at Intuit — challenge ourselves to dream big, push harder, and continue to come to work every day looking for new and better ways to power prosperity around the world.