Meet Lisa P. She has a fabulous job in a fabulous company. It's such a new type of position that it isn't one that society has yet said is more of a male or a female type of job. (AS IF ANY JOB IS!!!) But Lisa shows us what we already know, women can do anything, even something totally new!

GZ: What is your job?
Lisa: I am the Social Mission Coordinator for Ben & Jerry's.

GZ: Social Mission...What does that mean?
Lisa: Ben & Jerry's believes a company needs to contribute back to the community, be it in the form of money, or community service or free products. It is important not to just make money but to share the wealth with others that are involved in the company."

GZ: What exactly do you do?
Lisa: Ben and Jerry's distributes a lot of money to various organizations. The organizations have to justify why they want the money and what they will do with it. I review the applications and pass those that meet B & J criteria to my Director.

GZ: What is important to Ben & Jerry's?
Lisa: They look for grants that want to improve the environment, are grass roots organizations, are proposing something exciting and interesting, are new organizations just beginning, or are from small towns that want to improve or do something new, and things that have to do with schools.

GZ: Can you give me some examples of grants that have been chosen.
Lisa: A group of elementary and middle schools students received money to build a solar powered van. They raced the van in the Tour de France road race. They also funded a group of people who were fighting the sale of genetically altered food.

GZ: Besides reviewing grants, do you have other job duties?
Lisa: Yes. It is our responsibility to encourage our employees to be socially responsible. When a new product or flavor is being developed, we try to link it to a socially responsible non-profit organization. Like the ice cream Phish Food, B & J named it after a popular band who then donated a percentage of the profits to their favorite charity. In this case, the charity was the Waterwheel Project, dedicated to cleaning up lakes and streams.

GZ: If I wanted a job at B & J, what would I need?
Lisa: Ben and Jerry's is not into degrees as much as they want employees that believe in their mission. They want flexible, creative people who posses a positive outlook on life.

GZ: What's The Joy Gang? What do they do?
Lisa: Since our company produces something fun, ice cream, B & J felt it should be a fun place to work, thus they hired the joy gang to make sure we do not take ourselves or our jobs too seriously. The Gang plans our annual Halloween party, comes around with jugglers or clowns now and then. All employees are entitled to take three pints of ice cream home a day. And to make sure all that ice cream doesn't turn to fat you get a free health club membership.

GZ: What are your future plans?
Lisa: Well, I really want to stay here. I am working toward my BA degree in business and marketing. B & J have a very generous college tuition reimbursement, $5,000 a year toward education.

Good luck Lisa. You've helped us to show once again, that women can do ANY kind of job no matter how unusual or unique!

What is a mission statement?

a. A company's statement of what they want to achieve in their business and how they want to make it happen. It usually includes the basic philosophy of the company as well.

b. A company's statement of where they want to be in the future. It specifies the goals they want to achieve in a given number of years.

c. A company's statement of what each department in the company should accomplish. Kind of a blueprint that shows how the parts of the company make the whole company able to do what it needs to do.