American Airlines boosted its brand perception in August by providing transportation to select attendees of the United Nations Civil Society Conference. The conference, which was held in Salt Lake City, Utah, and outside the UN’s New York City headquarters for the first time in the conference’s 68-year history, brings together some 3,000 individuals representing more than 700 civil society organizations from more than 100 countries to discuss, in recent years, climate change, human rights, disarmament, global health, sustainability and volunteerism. The conference’s new location has posed financial challenges for smaller nonprofits that may not have the budget to send staff, especially overseas. To ease financial concerns, American Airlines offered to support CHOICE Humanitarian, an international organization based in West Jordan, Utah, with the goal to eliminate extreme poverty. The airline provided roundtrip flights for CHOICE Humanitarian staff located in each country where the nonprofit operates, including Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Kenya, Mexico, Nepal and Peru. The flights enabled some of CHOICE’s international team members to attend the conference. With the cost of roundtrip flights alleviated, CHOICE was able to provide staff with additional training and professional development prior to the conference.

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Danielle Renda is associate editor of PPB.