captioned by the national captioning institute --www.apicap.o.org-- >> business news from the capital region. this is "washington business report" with abc7 national correspondent rebecca cooper. >> thanks for joining us for a look at business and fance re ithe washinon region. we wl be talking about jobs numbers, china and news from our region th our roundtable. the firsfocus is ourocal sinesses. duringhe recessionon experts new charitabable donations would drop but analysts re surprised by how much.

donations tank by a full 20%. far m more than in previous downrns. now thslow speed of the recovery is continuingg to drag on charitable donations. every year at ththis time, business leade come together to recognize businesses who make philanthropy a t priority. joinining us today, john rter senior vice preresident of bb&t bank, and kim fiske of fiske & harvey. first, we wa to tatalk aut the bottom line for both of your indust it. let's start with banking. john, what is the outlook? >> thank you for having me. i think banking hasurned a corner. for my bank bb&t, we have had a

great first quarter. >> according to the financial press, you had net incomee jumpining 91%% for bb&t the first quarter and its stock climbing 24% one ofof the m most important numbers for cusustomersrs, youuere onone of 15 banks thakst passed the stress test. impressive numbers. >> another important numbeis the net revenue number. we are up 19%. that is really important. of the bottotom line numbeber is skewed by the releasese of loloan- ss reserves. >> inooking at what is caing been nomominal groh, some experts say it is what is happening across banks across the board. bad loans are getting off of

the book''s. >> that is true. there are fewer problems. we are focuseded on clients and growing siness. we have a solid reputation of being a safe and sound bank. we are 143 years old. we passed the stress test. we have been confident every quarte since the downturn and wewe are client focused. an example might be that we did not provide optioion ons back in 202006 or 2007. >> you could tell l the bank howow much you could pay in mortgage payments. >> it was not the right thing for our client it. if you do the right thing for your clients they will c come back to you. it didid not make sense so we did

not d do it. the third reason that we are doing well is t the diversification of revenues. about 37% of our revenues come from nonininterest soues like mortgage lending leasing, insurance. we are a very large in its current ency. getttting away from the ups and downs of theycle which is challengining for banks. kim fiske, let's turn to th legal profsion.. you have a small firm so you say you are betttter ablble to meet clnts' dwindlining resources by givi them m more effient billing. yosay there has been more of a need for lawyers than ever because of the rececession. >> i do not know if -- i think some of the reason is because beneficiaries have experienced

problems themselves. there is also that transfer of moneye have all heard about the beneficiaries are having trouble in their own personal lives. the money from their heirs becomes more and more important. we are seeing things such as fraud a and people signingg over lls it to someone else. >>ou pnt out the v very reason people are turning to lawyers more is trying to hash out proboblems over estate, and there is less money to fit over because the recession. how do you keep maintainingour bottom line in this econy? >> we have to be creative in the y we charge our fees. what we are dodoing is structuring things where we will be building up to a certain dollar amount and then a flat fee, or the

other way. we will char a flat feend then a reduced hourly fee. that way the client can c control their spending. >> what you seeing g in terms of all the different ways that ople n now tryry to see their own lawyer. my dad wasas a lawyer and said a man who represts himself is a client and counsel. how you persuadee people to get an actual lawyer rather than someonover the internet or documents over the internet? >> it seems as though a lot of people -- >> legal zoom and all of t that. you all say it is a tool but not a finalnswer. >> a lot of people are calling

me up asking me to explain the documents they get on the internet. i explaiain things they didn't understand that theyeeded to include in their documenents. >> this is a second provision r you. you u spend years in the banng industry.. what is your viview foror 2012?2? are coming ouf it? are people starting to rebuild when it comes to the economy? >> people are becoming more serious. i get a lot of young couples. it is wonderful to s see young couples. they need to plan for guardians where e children in case something happened to them. i think the recesession is making people focus on what important, and thatt is a family and planning aamping >> one silver lining to come out of all

of this. we want to talk about oneor all of you, the philanthropic work that you do. we are going to take of that topic after the break. weill be right back.

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>> welcome back. if you are just joining us, we are talkg to kim fiske of law firm fiske & hararvey and john reiter of &t bank. their busesses are bebeing rerecognizeded byolunteerer

alexandria for corporate philanthropy. w lelet' focus on why some businesses say donating time and money during a downturn makes sense. welcome back. kim, you or theounder of your law firm so its does not iress the boss when you get involved inhilanthropy, but you have been voted as the top volunteer in yourr area. so many oer things. how be maintainebusy professional life and served on some many different philanthropic boards? >> i think in order to receive you have to give. when i was in law school, i served onn the united way board. it helped me balance law school. some of the other law students were so involvedn law school. for me, it was parart of my life.

it is so easy to get involved and just over do it with the law. if iave the i involvement, it helps s mealance of life. >> i am always so ipirered by the alexandria commumunity. it is a community that praises the philanthropic work from corpororations more than any other region in washington. >> it is p partt of our missision to make the community in which we work to be better. we were honored foror our ally housproject which is our icon. it helps our mmunity because our bank is a reflection of the community that itit works and and is a team builder f our team. >> you say it is not jtood

fofor theommunity but itt helps your staff morale being able to be involved in l lighththouse. >>t is an honor to work with employs who care a about their community and want to give back.k. the project wasomething that our ceo came u up witin 2008 as budgets were bngutor spsorship. we had to provide money butlso volunteer hrs.. it could not just be wring a check. we have been involved in 3200 projects throughoutur footprint over the last four years. in here in alexaxandria,ountless hours of volunteer work it is imrtant to us. the economy -- banks ha had some criticisms.

there hass been no distinction between wall street and main street. we a main street bankers. we takake in excesss deposit and nding them out to small businesses and medium-sized businesses to hire americans. >> i always thinkusinesses that get involved in the community should b be recognized. you cacan see all the top businesssses recognized for some many different ways. thank yofor r joining us on "wasashington business report." there is more ahead. our roundtable is nenext.

>> welcome back. we are going to start with a look aphilanthropy fm another angle. a stape of springtimeme on the washington social calendar. pamela s sorensen, the fourth behind pamelasaspunch.com, and sahihil kur from talkingpointsmemo.com who has been keeping up with all of the job numbebers and things keeping people focuseded onhe presesidential campaign. pamela sorensen, i am going to ststart wi you. we have beenalking aboutut how businesses arerying to stay involved in planthrop. tell us out the challenge for charities in the region. >> it has beenen very interesting

especially this spring because ed lot of companies are trying to be creative about how they can get inlved. lots of cash sponsors. >> big ticke projects. ththey are tryining to restore the entire natiol mall. >> they cacan do a lot of things like silt aucon donations. northern virgia fine arts festals coming u up. that hasas more of a community focus. a local business ione of the sponsors. at is really cool because it is moreommunity-focused. >> you were sayinghat there are really good sinesses trying to show that they care about philanthropic work having ththe oice of major events. a large g gala upcoming. ththen you say there a are the

really community-sedd ones, one started by a rmer reporter here for awareness about down syndrome but at the grass-roots level. it is asking pents and kids to show up to walk a mile. >> walk a mile on saturday or sunday. >> we wou be e remiss if we did nonotay that you ha found creative ways to do your partt for chaharity. i have to safor the organization that is dear t to my heart -- i may make members of congngress and reporteters sing karaoke. let's roll the tape of how pamela sorensen car really creative. ♪ ♪

>> you need a that no cheat sheet for that one. there she is shaking it and sring things out for charity. that is a great example. >> that was my y talent. >> y you can u youour dignity for a good cause.. i amtill recovering from t the week of events that have to do with the whi house correspondents' dinner. how are you able to tell businesses havin events to getet people to show up? >> what it reallcomes down to is being focused on the type of charity that you want to become involved with. individuals mit only have time for x. and businesses may oy be supporting cancer charities or children's charities or the arts. that is where i ink yostt to be able to figure out where

you spend your time and money. >> let's switch over t talking abouthslow recovery. the economy is not growing fast enough. new numbmbers this w wee shohowing the economy is in slow motion. what is your take? >> 115,000 jobs added last month it was a big diprom the numbers of the previous two months. that had a lot opeople talking about the covery. this has happened many times ovover the l last few years. me bad news comes ong l lik it did last month and continues intothis month. we stillll have a long way to go. >> you have been inside the battle of two themes of

economic thought. there has been a bit of smack tatalk betenhe two. tell us what habeen going on there. >> this has been going on for several years. as thehe back story is a couple ars ago, paul ryan set out plan support by house republics that would drastically reshapehe federal budget. the crux of the pn is a massive tax cuts for high-income earners, massive sndg cuts for moststly the pooand working- class pele. krugman i saying the deficit reduction prpremise of the plan is pricated on what he calls an empty promise. >> iave been reading this carefully.y. you have an exclusive interviews going back and forth.

this is whatrugmanaid to you. "we know that theax cuts will not cocome with tax hikes." it is not the only way to find revevenue. he says the obama people are messing up how they handle it by not sayingot only we need to raise taxes but we need more stimulus spendin >> a bigig part of what h he sayingng is n only is it the wrong approach, but what paul ryan plans to do iis not specified. there are t trains of dollars in x cutsn his plan and he says he will lancnce those cuts bite loopholes and expenditures. the vast majority of loopholes an tax expenditures are things lilike m mortgage interest deductions which are very popularr with members of

congress. >> and hal paul kurgman wouldd pay r his planned. stay tuned finally, tell us your te on the breakthrough withhina this week. there was so much focus on the diplomatic fallout over the battle over the blind activist but there was an agreement reached on portant issues from the department of treasury's point of view. >> we e do not know e tailsf an agreemement at this point. sort of a deal was hammered out. m geithner said the crux was going to be changing ate pololicies a little bit or coince china to change in eir trade picies lel thplaying fid and in ththe back story is really important. economis he been urging the u.s. to geget tougher. >> we are gointo h have to cut

it off year. stay with u

>> our number the weekk is 15.3, the percentage incncrease in the washington r regio. the orge mason university nter for regionall anasis showour region could go work

force is shifting away from professional and business services. we h hope to see you again next weekor ather edition of "washington businessss report [ male announcer ] are you paying more and more for cable and enjoying it less and less? upgrade to verizon fios tv internet and phone for just $89.99 a a month guaranteed for two years with h a two-year agreement. this is a limited time offer, so don't wait. get fios at this great lo low price. act now and you'll get $250 back. but hurry. this incredible offer ends june 2nd. all 1.888.get.fios. fios. a network ahead. call the verizonenter for customers with disabilities at 800-974-600tty/v.