Subway Restaurants Take a Bite Out of Hunger

The Subway restaurants chain's community project has taken on the cause of two social issues: hunger and obesity, with  a unique marketing campaign Fit to Fight Hunger. Nearly 1600 restaurants in California, Hawaii and Utah will be participating in this piggyback type campaign, hoping to raise awareness for the rising needs of local food banks, while also promoting their low fat Subway Fresh Fit sandwiches and encouraging customers to make healthier eating choices.

This marketing campaign will be run in these three states with advertising in broadcast and print media and on their website, You Tube and Facebook. Fit to Fight Hunger provides information with some of the harsh statistics of hunger in the communities along with a listing of the food banks that they are supporting with their donation of over $100,000.00. There is an invitation to customers to join Subway in fighting hunger by supporting any of the 20 local food banks listed with donations of food, money, and time.

Here's what I liked about this campaign-

Subway does not tie-in buying their sandwiches with their donations to the cause. This makes their donation to the food banks philanthropic and not based on any surge of customer spending.

While their intentions are to market their healthy line of sandwiches, they are piggybacking their advertising dollars to spread the word about the cause and to create awareness for the food banks.

There purpose seems truly to be to educate and inspire customers to join them in helping the
cause by providing information about locations of local food banks.

There is no mention of which Subways are participating and which are not, so there is no perceived self interest of tying-in sales to their giving.

On the other hand- I have been to several of the restaurants this last week and have seen no mention of the Fit to Fight Hunger campaign, which means they are not directly reaching the customers. I wonder whether Subway could do more to help to promote this cause within their restaurants. While on the website they invite others to join them in fighting hunger, they do not provide any additional support for the customer to become involved other than their invitation. Finally, there is no way to assess the impact of the campaign on increasing donations to food banks. Ads are great but often forgotten.

Subway seems to be trying to makes this as clean cut a cause marketing program as possible
without mingling motives, an often problematic issue in cause marketing.

Besides, just the fight against obesity by providing low fat, yet delicious fast food is to be applauded.












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How Corporate Philanthropy Can Influence Your Business

Author: Thaddeus Bodemann

The term corporate philanthropy refers to the act of giving things away to non-profit organizations, grants, resources or simply monetary donations. Of course, the individuals giving away these things are a part of a big company or corporation. Philanthropy is a word that is used to describe an act of kindness. Basically, businesses that engage in these types of actions are considered to be kindhearted places. One great example is Cadeau Express, a private company in Las Vegas. Mr. Ramon Desage formed the company not ony to earn but also to help the people in Lebanon and Las Vegas.

Businesses that choose to employ this corporate giving attitude can benefit in many different ways from their actions. These businesses will increase their reputation amongst the general public, and also begin to attract new consumers to their business as well. Remember, the more consumers that you can attract the more money you can expect your business to make.

Businesses that choose to help out their communities will increase their employee retention rates significantly as well. Bear in mind that happy employees will increase their productivity levels and go above and beyond to ensure that your store is always operating in tip top shape.

When companies opt to engage in this giving activity their shareholders will begin to build a level of confidence in the business. Be aware that the shareholders that invest in your business hold a lot of power in their hands. They want to ensure that their money is being spent in the right places, therefore companies that engage in giving back to the community can expect their shareholders to give back to them in the process.

A lot of people and business owners, including Ramon Desage, believe that the only way to give anything back to the community is to spend money on the people that reside within it. Even though everyone loves being given money, businesses do not have to give away money in order to show their community that they care. Businesses can choose to give away other things such as the utilization of their facility for community events, their services, or form employee volunteer groups for the people that work for them.

Businesses large and small are implored to engage in some type of corporate philanthropy activity at least once per month. Most large businesses tend to wait until the holidays come around before they start giving back to their community. However, if you want to increase your overall annual sales rates you will elect to engage in giving activities throughout the entire year. All this you will learn by following Ramon Desage.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/public-relations-articles/how-corporate-philanthropy-can-influence-your-business-3812126.html
About the Author

Thaddeus Bodemann is an entrepreneur who has a great passion for helping people and his community. He is a follower of Ramon Desage - philanthropist/entreprenuer.

Business Doing Better at Doing Good- 2011 Trends in Business Philanthropy

The month of January is named after the god Janus, the god with two heads, one looking behind and one looking forward. Apparently the god Saturn, gave Janus the introspective ability to see into the past and the gift of seeing into the future. I can make no claims of having god-like abilities, but in reviewing the past year's stories and tweets, it seems that there is trend is to find newer and better ways for business to do good.

And these are the trends I see that will be significant in the year of 2011 for creating positive new directions in business philanthropy.

Using the Social Sciences to Understand the Dynamics of Giving Behavior

More and more studies in social psychology and behavioral economics have been addressing the question of what motivates people to give. Businesses hoping to use cause marketing and to engage their customers in giving, and non-profits seeking to find ways to get more value from their corporate sponsorships should tap into these research studies more. Take for example, the recent study about amusement park goers who paid more for their photos on a ride when they could choose their own price and the profits went to charity. Sceptics of the Panera Cares Business Model, (we profiled their first cafe opening, St Louis Bread Company Cares) which is an example of this kind of approach, should check out the video on CBS News.
For more research studies on consumer giving behavior check out: Ways Your Company Can Give More Bang For the Buck.

CSR's Umbrella


Last year I predicted that Cause Marketing and Corporate Giving would become more differentiated. Well I was wrong. The lines have gotten even blurrier between CSR, Employee Volunteerism, EVP, Cause Marketing and Corporate Giving. Is it more that they are distinctions or that they justifiably fall under the CSR umbrella? More and people cite all of these in the context of each other and often interchangeably. Beth Kanter suggests in her blog post.Corporate Altruism: The Blurring of the Lines Between CSR and Cause Marketing that perhaps the lines do not distinguish one fore another but that it is more of a continuum. CSR this past year has been struggling with finding a definition of itself, but more than being a continuum, I like the image of an overencompassing arc, like that of an umbrella..

Employee Drive Philanthropy


Yahoo employees do it, Blackbaud's employees do it and GiveSomethingBack's employees do it: various forms of employees recommending charities; designing the giving programs often in forms such as competitions,scholarships; sitting on the grants committee; and other forms of direct emplyee involvement.
Employers are seeing that when giving back to the community is a company grassroots effort, not only is there more by-in from the employees, more total giving in time and money, but also more loyalty given back to the company.

Skills Based Volunteering 

While providing extra hands for bagging food or assembling backpacks will never go away as an important function of Employee Volunteer Programs, more meaningful ways for employees to help communities are
emerging.  Bea Boccalandri of the BCCCC, has been advocating that businesses create more of these kinds of asset based opportunities for employees volunteering as a way for companies to provide their employees with more engaging and rewarding experiences that help build the capacity of the non-profit organization  in more sustainable ways. Skills based volunteering also serves as great employee training opportunities for the companies involved. Her suggestions may seem radical, and so she acknowledges that these changes need to be small at first and that both types of volunteering can co-exist. And she cites examples of companies like Aetna and Hasbro and Levis that have been doing so.


Directed Giving Through Voting and Liking

Using social media to involve the public in making the decision for a company's giving is going to get bigger and bigger. It's an approach that appeals to many as it can engage thousands in feeling that they can contribute in some small way by voting for their favorite charity or "liking" a facebook page, that results in an award or donation given by a business to the winner. Witness the Pepsi Refresh Project, (which I mentioned in last year's trends picks, The Classy Awards, (where two of our featured businesses, Sweets Trucks and GiveSomethingBack were finalists, and the American Express Small Business Day, where just a vote on a  website or a Facebook "like", brought about large corporate funding towards specific projects and causes.

More Public Scrutiny

As businesses will continue to involve the public in their giving programs, so will the public be more involved in the judgment of corporate giving. Witness the outcry over the Punk Buckets for a Cure, BOBS Shoes and Target's funding of political campaign. While some of the public will want to be more included in corporate giving, others like Michael Hiltzik of the LA Times (who gave us a cool shout out) may want to be left alone to their own philanthropy.
Whatever a company does, you can be sure the public will be watching to make sure that a company's giving is neither insincere, nor causing harm in any way other way, nor just plain dumb.

New Forms of Philanthropic Business Models 

While many were dubious of Panera's business model, more and businesses are coming up with innovative philanthropic business models. Even staid Nordstrom is planning to open a philanthropic department store in Manhattan with all profits going to charity. We have seen the B corp becoming recognized as a legal entity in several more states. Several forms of "buy one give one" business models, and more businesses like Panera with "set your own pricing schemes" have sprung up.
It is possible, of course, that some of these innovative philanthropic businesses will fail, but perhaps at no higher rate no than other start ups. And if so, so be it,  innovation requires taking taking on the risks of failure, but also the rewards of success and of leading the way in developing a whole new sector.


In spite of what I consider my one missed prediction for 2010, I think that last year's predictions, which you can read here, have proven to hold up and will grow to have even more importance in 2011. Business giving in partnership with consumers, non-profits and communities, will be evolving and will create better solutions to local and global problems.


I look forward to bringing more of these stories here in 2011.










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Are You Or Your Business Deluged With End Of Year Requests From Charities?

Have you noticed how more and more of your  friends are starting charities? How more and more friends are on boards and committees of non-profits and so more and more of them are helping raise money for a good cause? Just this week, I have received four newsletters, one phone call, two e-mail requests, one letter and one phone call -all from friends. They all say the same thing: charities have been hard hit, this is a really worthy cause, won't you give, give again, or give more?

Personally, what I find frustrating are the ambivalent feelings rising up in me. Yes, they are all worthy causes and yes, I want to help my friends as I have been there too helping raise money for a cause. I am finding it tougher and tougher to fend these requests off while at the same time feeling guilty that I have to do so.The trap that I am in, and I am sure this applies to many people, is that as these requests increase so has my total giving while at the same time individual donations to my favorite charities have decreased from previous years. It is hard to say to them: "I am giving to you less this year, because I am now also giving to, (for example) an orphanage in Africa.

Is this experience any different if you are small business, or large one for that matter?  You may have already have a favorite community cause or causes that you employees care about that you have been sponsoring all along, If you have a giving plan, you may already budgeted your charitable contributions for the year, Yet, you too are probably deluged with solicitations from local charities and you would like to help-you really would.. Add to all of this the fact businesses this past year have had even less to give than before.

Here is an example from a local business owner in Lane County, Eugene Oregon, where businesses have seen pleas for help from local charities climb as the economy has declined in the past three years.

“There’s so many probably deserving groups that it’s really hard — you can’t even take all the calls,” said Rob Bennett, owner of Bennett Management Company and the Downtown Athletic Club. Plus, he added, “We have relatively less (to give) than what we did three years ago. We’re holding our own, but the decisions are harder and the amount we can contribute is down from earlier years.” Register.com

Last year, we posted: "How To Say No (and Yes) To Charity Requests, which gave suggestions on how to cope with this increase in requests for donations.

What I think this holiday scramble really points to is that private giving (not at the Bill Gates' billionaires level) is being tapped out and charities need to turn to seek support from businesses both during the holidays and all year in order to survive. Even if a business cannot give much in cash donations there are so many ways that a business can do to help that private individuals cannot.

Here are some ideas:

• Create an employee giving program where employees choose which organizations they would like support.
• Matching grants for private donations( which have proven to be enormously successful) .
• Engaging customers for a cause-even a jar on the counter asking for spare change to help a worthy cause, can add up to a lot. Check out how Whole Foods and Safeway do this.
• Donate products, services, expertise.
• Volunteer, have employees volunteer in teams.
• Cause marketing promotion, attracting customers to purchase with a portion of the sales going to a cause.
• Set out collection bins for food, toys, clothing, even cell phones. 

So now- because as a single supporter  I have fewer of these options, I have to go off and write some checks before the end of the year hoping that these will help my favorite causes.

Ways Your Company Can Give More Bang For the Buck With a Matching Grant

There they go again, another pledge drive for local public broadcasting television and radio stations where programs are interrupted for on-air fund raising. Some viewers find this annoying, yet these stations rely on these drives to be able to continue to bring their quality programming to the public. And businesses can get  great a PR boost with their on air presence where employees are manning the phone lines and with reminders to the public of their generous matching donations.

Matching donations and challenge grants are a great strategy for any business to use in their philanthropy, as they leverage the benefits of their giving to non-profits which can be used to engage customers in consumer philanthropy. Whole Foods sets an example of how they do this with their some of their in-store fund raising. See other examples of Whole Foods and their creative consumer philanthropy in former posts.

This brings me to two studies, one on the  effects on charitable giving with different levels of matching donations and the other on the differences between challenge grants and matching donations. Essentially, the first study out of Yale University, found that 1:1 matching grants greatly increased revenue per solicitation overall levels of giving. The second study designed for the fund raising campaign for the British Columbia Chapter of the Sierra Club of Canada showed that challenge grants had more impact on overall giving than even matching grants.

I recently had a personal experience where I experienced the power of the extra challenge in making a difference in my giving. My college Alma Mater called asking me to renew my pledge this year. At first I was planning to not increase my annual donation. I was pleased to hear that the trustees had established a scholarship challenge to match every gift to the Fund meaning that my renewed gift would be doubled. But here was an additional challenge- that all increased gifts would be tripled. That meant by increasing my donation by $1.00 (well it ended up to be $10.00)   the entire amount of my giving was tripled.
How could anyone say no to that?

These studies and my experience as a donor, suggest that there are a host of creative options that a business should consider when offering matching grants and challenges to a non-profit. Whatever a business chooses to do has important implications on the amount a charity receives.

Businesses that can come up with inventive ways of leveraging, gives everyone involved more bang for the buck- potentially by more than double or even triple.

Is Your Employee Volunteer Program Ready For the Next Disaster?

Today at 10:21 A.M., businesses, schools, and households will experience a simulated earthquake drill, the Great California Shakeout. The goal of this statewide event is to  increase awareness and preparedness for the next real big quake in California. While this drill is meant to be a wake up call to the realities of where we are living, it can also be a reminder that a disaster like this in places that are impoverished will require immediate humanitarian relief  as well as long term help in rebuilding.

Last January, VolunterMatch, a great organization that helps businesses and non-profits develop their volunteer programs, forwarded their Jan.newsletter, with their featured article: "After Haiti What Your Company Can Do" . This article had specific tips and suggestions aimed at helping victims of the Haiti disaster through  their employee volunteer programs, which can be used as a template for any future disasters where a company's philanthropy program would like to help.

Their recommendations include ideas for how to raise funds, how to determine the best agencies to donate to, and how to use the many VoluteerMatch tools such as their Emergency Preparedness Map, their special Event Manager Program  for organizing company volunteers for food and clothing drives, and their Disaster Messaging Tool.

While your company is thinking of building a toolkit for local emergencies preparedness, why not think about the need to be prepared to help others less fortunate when disaster hits them?

Businesses That Care About Safe, Clean, Water -Blog Action Day 2010

While millions suffer from lack of available clean water both small and large companies, are donating money and resources to address this worldwide problem.

Today, is Blog Action Day 2010 Water, that focuses on raising awareness and creating a global discussion around the important issue of clean and safe water. The Blog Action Day site offers some shocking statistics on the impact that this issue has on human rights, the environment, technology and local economies.

Even though 70 percent of this planet is made of water, only a small percentage is safe for consumption and only 1 in 7 people around the world have access to safe, clean drinking water in good times, with that number dramatically increasing  in crisis like earthquakes and hurricanes.

Blog Action Day 2010 also supports the UN's mission to bring clean, safe water to millions. Please click on the petition below and add your voice to this worthy cause.

Every year in March (we wrote about restaurants that participated in 2009)  UNICEF's Tap Project partners with restaurants to raise funds to help bring clean and accessible water to millions of children around the world. Customers are asked to pay $1.00 for the glass of water they normally are served for free which is then donated to Tap.

And other businesses, are getting involved in supporting a variety of programs that are working  towards solutions for the world water crisis-

California-based CellarThief  a wine merchant that sells only three hand picked wines from world class wines at any given time. This unusual wine seller, donates proceeds from each bottle of wine to  the organization Charity:Water . For every bottle of wine sold, Cellar Thief  donates 100 day's worth of clean water.

Pantene Pro-V has created its  first-ever Pantene Global Cause Program, "Healthy Hair for Healthy Water"
Pantene's program can prevent 20 million days of illness and save an estimated 2,500 lives. For every  bottle purchased from pgestore.com Pantene will donate $0.10 to the P&G Children’s Safe Drinking Water Fund. Ten cents is all it costs to provide a child in the developing world  one week of clean drinking water.  For more information about the charity, please visit CSDW

Dow Chemical  works with NGO's, celebrities, and other companies to raise awareness about the lack of safe drinking water in impoverished communities around the globe. This year on April 18, Dow sponsored the Dow Live Earth Run for Water –  the largest global water awareness initiative, that consisted of a series of 6-kilometer run/walks, concerts and  activities centered around.
Besides raising awareness, Dow has been helping solve the global water crisis by donating funds and materials to make clean and drinkable water accessible following disasters such as the earthquake in Haiti and China. In addition Dow has been providing clean water purification systems to a variety of schools, orphanages  and hospitals in remote areas of Vietnam and India

With all the many times I have been in Starbucks, I never realized that extra bottle of water I purchased helps support  the cause of  providing children with access to clean water. Ethos® Water was created to help raise awareness about this terrible crisis. For every bottle a customer buys, 5 cents goes to the Ethos® Water Fund, part of the Starbucks Foundation. Already more than $6 million has been granted to help support water, sanitation and hygiene education programs around the world.

Small business owner/founder Suzanne Meyer Pistorius, of Blugirl Art  donates 15%  of online sales of specially selected furniture pieces, designer fabrics, jewelry and photography, to Clean Water Action.  Having grown up in Swaziland, where she came to understand the preciousness of clean water Suzanne, now in western MA, has also become an active member of Clean Water Action, helping to address some critical issues such as banning toxic BPA from children's products.

The Miox Corporation in Albuquerque creates equipment that helps sanitize water, making it safe for consumption. "As soon as we heard what happened in Haiti, it was obvious that we could help," said Matt Santillanes, engineering technician at the Miox Corporation.This led the corporation to donate over 100 portable water purifiers. Each purifier can produce 100 pounds of disinfectant per day with just adding water and salt.

Ayindisa Socially Responsible Artisan Crafts, located in Ridgefield CT,donates 15% of the proceeds of its sales of hand-woven baskets to Engage Now Africa specifically for the construction of a shallow well in a rural village of Ghana,Yarkibisi. “The construction of the well will provide much-needed clean drinking water for the village and help fight illness and disease,” said Chris Gay, the founder of Ayindisa.

Please help support this worthy cause by signing the petition below.

Petitions by Change.org|Start a Petition »

How Not To Do Business Philanthropy -Like Skechers BOBS

Skechers the athletic and leisure shoe company has recently unveiled a new line of shoes called  BOBS, a TOMS canvas shoes look alike. Not only do BOBS shoes look a lot like TOMS with the little tag and all, but Skecher's is also donating a pair of shoes to a needy child for every pair of shoes bought.

So, this blog is supposed to be about "innovative ideas for business philanthropy" - with the intent of inspiring other businesses to create giving programs that can create social benefit. Every now and then something comes across my desk that leaves me scratching my head and wondering : "what WERE they thinking?!!!"

I can't presume to know what Skechers was thinking about, but just looking at this program gives one a lot to learn about how not do business philanthropy.

But first, to be fair, it's important to say a few good things about the Skechers program. They are donating shoes to a first rate non profit, Shoes4Soles, that delivers donated used shoes to impoverished areas all over the world. I wrote about Soles4Souls after the Haiti disaster here. Also on the Skechers webpage they have a link to their corporate philanthropy program, the SKECHERS USA, “Nothing Compares to Family” promotion, that ran through 2009, and starred popular celebrity families and benefits children's charities with ads breaking in celebrity weekly and fashion magazines.

There is no mention of BOBS shoes on  this page - which gives me  me a perfect opportunity to launch into the first of several  "What Not To Do's." in business philanthropy.

Don't tell your customers much about the charity or the cause you are partnering with.
When buying BOBS, there is little opportunity for a customer to learn anything about Soles4Souls and what they do. The transparency of the business giving is just as important as the transparency of the non-profit. Soles4Souls is a fabulous organization that provides shoes to disaster victims in impoverished countries and Skechers has lost an amazing opportunity to promote their mission better. To add injury to injustice when I last checked BOBS site, the link to Soles4Souls page no longer exists.

Have no  transparency.
Skechers has a brief description of their donations to Soles4Soles on their website, but there is nothing to describe how they are partnering with them and what kind of shoes they are donating, unlike TOMS which has pages of information about their philanthropy.

Don't bother to assess your business' core values.
Toms shoes started with a vision of being a philanthropic business caring about the plight of impoverished children in the world. Hard to know how Skechers came up with the idea that they cared about barefoot children. If that were part of their corporate values they might  have unveiled a broader program donating other kinds of more useful shoes, like their sneakers.

Don't do something that makes sense as good business strategy.
Coming out with a giving program that is related to you core business is a good idea, but even then, distinguishing yourself from the competition continues to be important for business success.In these economic times, no business can afford to pay little attention to using the best strategy for their business whether it ties into their philanthropy or not.


Don't tell a good story

Part of TOMS success is their utterly original and charming story that has captured the hearts and minds of the public and the media in a big way. Good stories helps inspire others, including your employees, your customers, your investors and other businesses and brings attention to your cause and to your business.


 


Do make everyone question whether it is a marketing ploy.
Skechers may have had truly philanthropic intentions, but the perception of this program is that it appears to be a quick marketing scheme. In the world of business, perception often becomes reality.

There are many lessons to learn from many companies and their giving programs. Often there are mistakes in the planning and execution both for businesses and non-profits.Skechers may be singled out here, but in truth corporate philanthropy, CSR, and community involvement is still quite young as a movement. Hopefully more and more businesses will learn from other successes and failures alike, and come on board to support their communities and good causes through philanthropy.

How Corporate Giving To Haiti Disaster Has Inspired More Giving

Now nine months after the earthquake in Haiti, a report has come out via the aid agency,World Vision, about the overwhelming corporate response for sending aid to victims of the earthquake. Back in January we wrote: From Cell Phones To Shoes, How To Use Your Business To Help Haiti, where we highlighted stories about businesses large and small that were pitching in with helping out in a huge variety of ways. Following my post, I received a twitter message from Jeffrey Montgomery, the Managing Partner of Omatic Software, asking whether Omatics' contribution to this disaster, donating their Import-o-matic software solutions for free to organizations that are providing aid to Haiti, counted as a worthy example. What ensued was a conversation, "Does Giving Inspire More Giving" about how a company's involvement in aiding a disaster inspired the company to become more philanthropic in the future.

World Vision has seen this type of increase also as this tragedy has been a catalyst for businesses to respond  to the need for sending aid more nimbly and for partnering with aid organizations more effectively. While World Vision commends their corporate partners for their generosity prior to this and other more recent disasters, they are lauding the surge of giving and partnering from the corporate sector that has grown since then.


Haiti Quake a 'Game Changer' for Corporate Philanthropy
Leading aid agency expects to see greater corporate involvement in future disaster responses

SEATTLE, Aug. 31 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As Haiti marks nearly eight months since its devastating earthquake and Chile sees the six-month mark since its own destructive quake, international aid agency World Vision has seen a notable increase in both corporate donations and level of involvement and interest in disaster relief from companies in a broad range of industries.

"Haiti was a catalyst for American companies to look at broader and deeper ways they could partner with aid groups that are on the front lines. Now, with companies like P&G and Verizon contributing to the Pakistan flood response, we're continuing to see this trend," explained David Owens, vice president of corporate development for World Vision.

"While we had indisputably one of the most generous set of corporate partners before the Haiti quake, we've been humbled by the overwhelming corporate response in the past nearly eight months," Owens continued. "And with the current hurricane season kicking into high gear, we realize there's a greater demand for charitable partnerships that can serve an enterprise in all the ways it may want to give back—from employee initiatives to corporate foundations to product donations to relevant expertise it can share."

Verizon's financial support for Haiti came through a variety of areas including grants from the Verizon Foundation and a program to match employee contributions dollar-for-dollar. The company also created a Haiti donation micro site where its customers could contribute online to relief agencies' responses.

Best Western International invited its guests to donate reward points from the hotel chain's loyalty program to help survivors of the Chile quake. The company notified customers by email and on its website of the opportunity, which complements the company's ongoing campaign that invites both guests and hotel employees to sponsor children in need through World Vision.

JPMorgan Chase, Symantec and Johnson & Johnson provided their staff with a hands-on way to give back, by partnering with World Vision to assemble relief kits for delivery to Haiti. Overall, World Vision's corporate partners have assembled 25,000 kits since October for use in disaster zones and other high-need areas around the world.

The Salesforce.com Foundation responded to Haiti based on the company's 1/1/1 integrated corporate philanthropy model, where 1% of the company's time, 1% of its equity and 1% of its products are given forward to the community. Salesforce.com leveraged its website to World Vision's relief effort by providing its customers a link where they could make online donations and encouraged other corporations to make their own contributions. In addition, salesforce.com matched all donations dollar-for-dollar to World Vision's response and used Twitter to spread the word. Further, salesforce.com employees mobilized and assembled more than 500 emergency relief kits for Haitian earthquake survivors.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Business Civic Leadership Center (BCLC) has also recently noticed a similar trend of increased business involvement in disaster response and global development, particularly since Haiti's January quake. "We have seen that Haiti rebuilding is a catalyst for corporations to offer both financial support as well as sector expertise," explained Stephen Jordan, BCLC's Executive Director.

In addition, the BCLC together with Executives without Borders is establishing a Haiti Business Corps. The pilot project aims to make it easier for companies to effectively leverage their talent and expertise in the delivery of social good to Haiti.

"I'm grateful to all our corporate partners who have given so generously in this extraordinary year of disasters. But I'm also confident that in future global emergencies, the corporate sector will continue to leverage their influence and stakeholders in ways that make a bigger overall difference," explained Keith Kall, World Vision's executive director for global partnerships.

Given Haiti's high rate of poverty and the massive loss of infrastructure and human capital, this earthquake has proven to be one of the most difficult disaster responses in recent memory. While working to scale up construction of transitional shelters, World Vision is also beginning to implement more sustainable large-scale programs in the areas of livelihoods, water and sanitation, health and education. To learn more about World Vision's work in Haiti, please read our 6-month report at http://www.worldvision.org/resources.nsf/main/press-haiti/$file/Haitisix.pdf or call 1-888-56-CHILD.

Corporations may contact World Vision at 1.800.642.1616

World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tacking the causes of poverty and injustice. For more information, please visit www.worldvision.org/press

SOURCE World Vision U.S.
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