# Helping Refugees in the U.S. Turns Out To Be Good For Business

1 Opinion December 12, 2018 MarketWatch ![Tülin Erdem](/sites/default/files/styles/246w/public/assets/images/terdem-article.jpg?itok=CgnAXPDI) By Tülin Erdem & Selcuk Sirin > Overall, support for refugees, which might seem like a bad political calculation, is in fact paying off for brands.

Refugees are at the center of a political debate that heated up during the 2016 elections and has only increased in intensity since the 2018 midterms and the arrival of a refugee caravan at the US-Mexico border. Despite the polarized rhetoric in these discussions, businesses have been taking a stand in support of refugees. In the past two years, more than 100 companies have publicly joined the [Tent Partnership for Refugees](http://tent.org/), a non-profit with a mission to develop and implement concrete business commitments to refugees.

Are these businesses simply altruistic or can helping refugees also be good for business during an era of anti-refugee sentiment?

To understand whether helping refugees helps or hurts brands, [researchers from the NYU Stern School of Business surveyed a representative sample of consumers in the U.S. about their sentiments](https://www.tent.org/resources/helping-refugees-helps-brands/) in regard to 10 brands across 10 product categories (alcohol, automobiles, cosmetics, apparel retail stores, cosmetics, grocery stores, home furnishings, hotels, soft drinks, soap-shampoo, and sports apparel), as well as consumer sentiments about business commitment to refugees.

The results from 7,139 consumers are somewhat surprising: almost half of them (48%) noted that they are more likely to purchase a brand if they know the brand is committed to supporting refugees in one or more ways. The level of support is even higher among millennial consumers: 60% of those surveyed under age 35 are more likely to purchase pro-refugee brands.

Read the full [*MarketWatch* article](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/helping-refugees-in-the-us-turns-out-to-be-good-for-business-2018-12-12).
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*Tülin Erdem is a Professor of Marketing and Chair of the Marketing Department at NYU Stern School of Business.

[Selcuk Sirin](https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty/Selcuk_Sirin) is a Professor of Applied Psychology at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development.*## More from Tülin Erdem

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