The second full week in September celebrates National Compassionate Leadership Week to create a more compassionate world.

#NationalCompassionateLeadershipWeek

Our lives are unpredictable because of constant disruption in our daily routines. As we shuffle our family life with our professional life, we often feel overwhelmed and uncertain. As adults, we look towards other adults as a source of inspiration and reassurance. Oftentimes, we turn to our colleagues for leadership and guidance. Management and other organization leaders everywhere are more than just employers, they are becoming a source of compassion for their employees.

Leading with Compassion

Companies today are faced with the decision to become more active in employee lives. In fact, employees, consumers, and stakeholders are demanding that companies take care of their people, their communities, and the world around them, too. Old expectations of working for the bottom line no longer exists as a company goal. In fact, successful companies today work towards a double bottom line, a balance between strengthening the business and the employees that work there.

Company culture today consists of a new kind of employee who require a new approach to leadership/ Studies show that people entering the workforce are too young, too diverse, too disengaged, too tired of not being heard and respected. Companies that include compassion in their leadership achieve success quickly because performance is always at a peak.

Can you deliver a strong, successful business using compassion?

Absolutely. The most successful companies can be compassionate and deliver strong results in business, education, politics and in our communities. Companies that produce compassionate leaders provide unspoken benefits of increased leadership and productivity, not to mention an increase in morale in the workplace.

How can companies show compassion for their employees?

There are many things a company can do for their employees to show more compassion. Opening communication is a perfect way to learn about company values, expectations, and goals. Most importantly, it’s a great opportunity to give and receive praise and acknowledgement. Forming important bonds within a company helps leaders identify whether an employee is having problems outside of work. In return, knowing those problems is an opportunity to show compassion and offer extra support.

Tips to become a Compassionate Leader

• Offer and attend training to encourage compassionate leadership skills.
• Check in with employees often to take time and listen to them.
• Schedule workshops for employees through human resources.
• Get to know employees and their families.
• Join the Compassionate Leader Movement.
• Attend the Compassionate Leadership Conference in 2023 during Compassionate Leadership Week.
  Take the necessary time to listen to the stories of others and embrace their sense of relevancy as well as any pain they may be experiencing.
• Nominate a leader on the TramutoPorter Foundation website who has demonstrated by example empathy in action for the Compassionate Leadership Award to be awarded each year during the Compassionate Leadership Week.

The TramutoPorter Foundation

For over 20 years, the TramutoPorter Foundation has been a leader in expanding compassionate leadership in the workplace. Our mission to create a more compassionate world has allowed us to form partnerships to help solve challenges in business, education, politics, and within families.

The TramutoPorter Foundation has been working on behalf of several compassionate causes. We have implemented a scholarship fund to support students who have lived through and risen above adversity. The foundation formed a partnership with the RFK Human Rights Organization to create a program to promote workplace dignity. In addition, we have been working together to gather life-saving supplies for refugees feeling Ukraine. The foundation also announced a new partnership with Boston University that includes an endowment for scholarships in its school of public health. The endowment will support more compassionate approaches to solving global health challenges. Most importantly, it will create programming that will deliver a compassionate leadership curriculum to be delivered digitally.

Our Values

Compassion
Connection
Collaboration
Creativity
Humanity

History

Donato Tramuto and National Day Calendar created National Compassionate Leadership Week to be celebrated the second full week of September each year. For 2022, the week will begin on September 11th – 17th.

The TramutoPorter Foundation was created in 2001 by Donato Tramuto and his longtime partner and Co-Founder Jeffrey Porter, after Donato lost two close friends and their son on 9/11 after visiting him in Maine. Donato was planning to join his friends on that day and a last-minute dental emergency prevented him from joining his friends and decided to Los Angeles the night before. Sadly, Donato’s friends perished in the plane that hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center that day.

Donato was devastated by the tragic event and the loss of his friends. Instead of letting grief and anger consume him, he decided to create the foundation in their memory. Today, the memory of
his friends and those who lost their lives that tragic day lives in Donato’s heart. He continues to dedicate his life to spreading compassion and understanding in the world to help solve problems, particularly in areas of health, education, and human rights.

Compassion Movement

Tramuto and Porter continue to spread its message of compassion through Compassionate Leadership Week. This week celebrates compassionate leaders by bringing attention to the proven benefits of compassionate leadership. It shows through their own example and many other leaders, that it’s possible to be compassionate while delivering strong results whether it be in business, education, politics or in our own families and communities.

In 2021, the TramutoPorter Foundation celebrated its 20th anniversary by pledging to expand its compassionate work envisioning compassion movement. In April 2022, the foundation launched a new book, authored by Tramuto, called The Double Bottom Line: How Compassionate Leaders Captivate Hearts and Deliver Results. The book and Tramuto were featured in Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company, Investor’s Business Daily, Katie Couric Media and many other media outlets.

About Donato Tramuto

Founder & Chairman, Health eVillages
Founder & Chairman, TramutoPorter Foundation and Health eVillages
Author & Healthcare Activist

Donato J. Tramuto, is the former CEO of Tivity Health®, Inc., (Nasdaq: TVTY), and is widely recognized for his commitment to social change and transformational leadership in healthcare innovation. The New York Times deemed him “a global health activist.” Tramuto is also the founder and chair of The Tramuto Foundation, which advances rights to education and healthcare access for young people. In addition, the foundation combats human right violations. He launched the foundation in memory his two friends and their 3-year-old son who lost their lives on 9/11 when United Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower. Tramuto was scheduled to be on that flight. However, and due to a toothache, he never boarded the plane.

Since the launch of the foundation, over 100 young adults have received a TramutoPorter Foundation Scholarship. All scholarships awarded help young adults pursue their dream of a college education. With financial support for other organizations, the TramutoPorter Foundation delivers on their promise to make the world a more compassionate place. Tramuto is a sitting member of the board for the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organization and their Leadership Council Chairman. In fact, his commitment has led to funding a three-year, $1 million grant addressing workplace bullying in the U.S. and Europe. Amazingly, this leading national initiative also addresses workplace dignity and inclusion.

A Compassionate Leadership Task Force, launched in September of 2021, will initiate a pilot with a number of Boston colleges and universities, to address the significant epidemic around
loneliness and social isolation among our young and older adults. The task force will implement existing interventions by integrating them into community-centered organizations, like faith-based organizations. In addition, they will assist colleges and universities to address the compassionate leadership umbrella and how intergenerational connections can reduce the loss sense of relevancy among young and older adults.

Published Author

Tramuto is a successful published author. His works include:

• Life’s Bulldozer Moments: How Adversity Leads to Success in Life and Business
• The Double Bottom Line: How Compassionate Leaders Captivate Hearts and Deliver Results

Awards

Robert F. Kennedy Ripple of Hope (2014)
RFK Embracing His Legacy Awards (2016)
PharmaVoice RedJacet Lifetime Recipient Award

Tramuto is also a passionate champion of cutting-edge approaches to healthcare access, drug safety, and addressing the social determinants of health (SDOH), defined by the World Health Organization as the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. Under his tenure as CEO of Tivity Health and following his execution of a successful turnaround, he transformed the business model to center around partnering progressively, profitably, and collaboratively with consumers, payers, healthcare practitioners and employers in cutting- edge approaches to SDOH conditions including nutrition, fitness, and social connection, that improve health outcomes and reduce medical costs.

Before joining Tivity Health, Tramuto’s record of bringing together social commitment with healthcare innovation included his founding of Physicians Interactive Holdings (Aptus Health sold to WebMD in 2019). As a global provider of insight-driven digital engagement solutions for healthcare professionals and consumers. Reflecting a conviction that universal healthcare is a basic human right for all people, he launched Health eVillages in 2011, a non-profit organization providing state-of-the-art mobile health technology in the most challenging clinical environments and working to broaden healthcare access.

Boards

Brown University Healthcare Leadership Board
Advisory Board of Boston University School of Public Health
Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Europe
Health eVillages
Zeel Health
Esperta Health
Gryphon Investment Executive Advisory Board
Executive in Residence at Promerica Health, Concierge Health, Sharecare, Skyscape, and Gento Health
Skyscape
Honorary Scholar in Residence at St. Joseph’s College, Maine

Achievements

Honorary Doctorate: University of Massachusetts at Lowell
Honorary Doctorate: Thomas Jefferson University
Honorary Doctorate: Lasell College
Honorary Doctorate: Saint Joseph’s College
Honorary Doctorate: Regis College

100% of the proceeds from the new book The Double Bottom Line will be shared with the following compassionate organizations:

The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Workplace Dignity Program

Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights’ newest program, Workplace Dignity, was created to provide leaders with actionable, practical tools that foster a new understanding of the workplace where the dignity—the inherent value and worth—of employees is centered, creating a workplace culture in which all can thrive. The Tramuto Foundation provided a three-year grant to launch the program, recognizing that advancing the dignity of all workers, whatever the work they do and wherever they do it, is not only the right and humane thing to do, but also deepens engagement, enhances productivity and promotes retention. The program recognizes that human rights don’t end at the workplace door. Workers are entitled, in the words of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, to a workplace that is “just and favorable.” But all too often there is a gap between what employees report they are experiencing and what employers think their workplace and its culture are delivering. Organizations can close that gap by refining the day-to-day actions and behaviors of their leaders, and more structurally, through organization-wide processes and policies (impacting recruiting, on-boarding, communication, benefits, and more). The program provides tools for change in each of these areas. It also celebrates dignity champions and practices in a range of workplaces, strategically supports dignity-advancing legislation, and incorporates workplace dignity as a content anchor in other RFKHR programs.

To learn more, visit: www.rfkhumanrights.org

RFK Community Alliance

For more than fifty years, the RFK Community Alliance has served as a beacon of hope for at-risk youth and families in Massachusetts. With a focus on child welfare and juvenile justice, the RFK Community Alliance has created community-based initiatives and residential treatment and juvenile justice programs. The organization works with national organizations and state agencies to ensure that proven and developed methods are used to help at-risk children. With tools that help them heal and grow, families can overcome the most difficult of challenges. In collaboration with the Doctor Franklin Perkins School, the Children’s Action Corps serves approximately 2,000 children, youths, and adults annually who are faced with emotional, psychological, health, environmental, and social issues. With the use of community-based services, educational services, foster care and adoption, and residential treatment, a brighter future for all children is possible.

To learn more, visit: www.rfkchildren.org