Without a sense of professional purpose, going to work every day is a miserable slog. Granted, there are plenty of people who go about their jobs for decades without a purpose, but that’s not exactly a morale-booster for colleagues–and for a large firm, it could be deadly.

Accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the largest privately-held organizations in the U.S., is on a mission to define and strengthen its purpose. First, the company rolled out a purpose statement last year:

At PwC, our purpose is to build trust in society and solve important problems. As a firm, we believe in fulfilling our corporate responsibilities and in giving back to the society and helping the community and environment at large. This is part and parcel of our endeavour to build trust in society in a broader sense. Looking after the communities and environments in which we work in isn’t just good manners, it’s good business.

Sounds genuine enough. But for a company’s purpose to really take hold, employees have to see how it goes beyond volunteer opportunities that skirt the edges of their professional lives. They need to carry that purpose with them throughout the day. PwC’s purpose statement is a start, but building trust in society and solving important problems can mean different things to different people. There needs to be more.

“We wanted to find ways that people can personally relate to it. We’re really looking at personal behavior, and how that might bridge the gap to understanding the firm’s purpose,” says Shannon Schuyler, principal at PwC, corporate responsibility leader, and president of the PwC Charitable Foundation.





On January 8, 500 PwC employees gathered in New York City for the company’s first summit on social purpose, featuring a series of short TED-style talks from employees and purpose-driven outsiders like Charles Best, from DonorsChoose.org, Neil Blumenthal, the co-founder of Warby Parker ; Jeffrey Hollender, the founder of Seventh Generation; and Shaun T, founder of the Insanity Workout.

“We had people who represent the corporate side, nonprofits, government agencies, to talk about what purpose means in different forms,” says Schuyler. “Purpose is interactive, not just words on a paper.”

PwC’s event also had speakers from within the company, including Brian Gaffney, a manager. For Gaffney, purpose is about bringing his real personality to work, not just a corporate version. “I’m a husband, father,a person passionate about jazz and coffee. I want to bring all of that into conversations with clients,” he says. “When I’m sitting across from a leader, I want to connect on a person to person level, not a consultant to client level.”