Social Impact & Volunteering

Bringing Social Innovation a Little Closer to Home

Beth Shiroishi, Vice President, Sustainability & Philanthropy at AT&T Reflects on 2012
Feb 5, 2013 12:15 PM ET

AT&T Consumer Blog: Bringing Social Innovation a Little Closer to Home

By: Beth Shiroishi, Vice President, Sustainability & Philanthropy

Some parts of my job are so great that I really can’t help but talk about them.

Over the holidays, I took a little time to reflect upon all the work my team (an awesome team that I am privileged to work with every day) accomplished in 2012. Boy! What a year. From announcing a quarter-billion-dollar expansion of AT&T Aspire, to working with the Environmental Defense Fund to reduce our water use, to breaking a Guinness World Record for cell phone recycling – we had a busy year!

But we know that to make real inroads on sustainability, we need others. And we need to engage a global community to be part of our sustainability efforts.

That’s why, in late 2011, we collaborated with Causes.com, a platform dedicated to harnessing the power of Facebook to promote social good. Working with Causes.com, we launched the first-ever corporate causes community, Connect For Good. We’ve since grown the community to nearly 195,000 members who took more than 246,000 actions to raise more than $420,000 for worthy charities. Through Connect For Good, we’ve invited people to get involved in their local communities to reduce the high school drop-out rate, educated them about the dangers of texting while driving, and garnered amazing support to ease the transition of soldiers returning home to their families. 

For our most recent social good campaign, we tried to shake things up a bit by asking our community members to tell us about the organizations that matter most to them.

We were blown away with the response.

People from Maine to California wrote us impassioned notes about organizations ranging from animal welfare groups to youth centers. They told us about places that care for their children and grandchildren with developmental disabilities – places that have answered the prayers of countless families. They sent us tales of organizations that helped guide people out of poverty to live fulfilled lives. They brought tears to our eyes with stories of a haven for homeless women and children.

Thanks to passionate submissions from dedicated community members, we are excited to announce the following six organizations were selected to receive a $5000 contribution from AT&T:

It’s no secret that we are stronger together – come check out our Causes community today and be a part of working together to build a brighter future for our communities.