VolunteerMatch Announces Winners of 6th Annual Corporate Volunteer Awards
(3BL Media) May 22, 2012 - VolunteerMatch has honored five U.S. companies for outstanding innovation, commitment and leadership in corporate community involvement. During a ceremony last week at its 2012 Client Summit in San Francisco, VolunteerMatch recognized Morgan Stanley, Old National Bank, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Allina Health for excellence in employee volunteering. VolunteerMatch also gave special acknowledgement to team members from the Walmart Foundation who have been instrumental in coordinating the retailer’s $2 billion commitment to fighting hunger in America.
VolunteerMatch is the web’s largest volunteer engagement network. Best known for its popular web service, www.volunteermatch.org, the national nonprofit also helps hundreds of leading corporations successfully manage their volunteer engagement initiatives. This is the sixth year VolunteerMatch has given out its Corporate Volunteer Awards, which recognize businesses based on objective and subjective criteria against a variety of performance benchmarks.
The winners of the 2012 VolunteerMatch Corporate Volunteer Awards are:
Employee Volunteer Program of the Year (Large Businesses): Morgan Stanley - Volunteerism is a key component of Morgan Stanley’s commitment to giving back. In 2011 the financial services firm’s hallmark initiatives included a year-round volunteer program that encourages long-term relationships with nonprofits, a signature Strategy Challenge pairing teams of employees with 15 organizations for pro bono planning sessions, and a Global Volunteer Month that encouraged employees to give at least two hours of time. By year’s end Morgan Stanley employees had tracked more than 170,000 hours, a 30% increase from 2010.
Employee Volunteer Program of the Year (Small-Medium Businesses): Old National Bank - Old National Bank, based in Evansville, Ind., encourages its 2,800 employees to pursue their passions as volunteers in the community. In 2011, 50% of the team took advantage of the volunteer program, tracking an astonishing 77,000 total hours. Thanks in part to incentive programs such as offering two paid hours per month for employees, an “Honor Roll” for high achieving volunteers and a company match, the employee participation rate was more than 18 times the average in the benchmark study.
Champions of the Year: Karen Thompson and Laura Siemens, Walmart Foundation - As grant makers and program managers at Walmart Foundation, Karen Thompson and Laura Siemens are helping the world’s largest corporation invest $2 billion in the fight against hunger. Walmart began working with VolunteerMatch in 2008 to engage its 1.4 million employees in volunteering. Today, as part of the company’s innovative Fighting Hunger Together initiative, the Walmart Foundation and VolunteerMatch are helping more than 4,000 food banks, pantries, nutrition programs, community gardens and other hunger-related organizations fight food insecurity by increasing their capacity to involve volunteers.
Breakthrough Performance (Tie): Allina Health, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - Both newly launched at VolunteerMatch in 2011, Allina Health and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt are already demonstrating what successful volunteer engagement looks like. Allina Health employees logged 60,000 community service hours for the year, helping to guide more than $100,000 in matching funds from the Minneapolis, Minn.- based not-for-profit healthcare provider. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt engages employees through local Community Investment Councils, which use VolunteerMatch as a tool for volunteer activities that support its CSR pillars of giving voice, promoting access to ideas and removing barriers. Among the world’s largest providers of pre-K–12 education solutions and one of its longest-established publishing houses, the Boston-based Company inspired its 3,700 employees to track more than 5,000 hours during the fourth quarter of 2011.
"This year’s award winners demonstrate what’s possible when companies engage the time and talent of their employees," said Greg Baldwin, president of VolunteerMatch. "We’re honored to support their efforts."
To learn more about the 2012 VolunteerMatch Corporate Volunteer Awards, please visit:
http://www.volunteermatchsummit.org
To learn more about VolunteerMatch Solutions, visit:
http://www.volunteermatch.org/corporations
About VolunteerMatch
VolunteerMatch is the Web's largest volunteer engagement network, with more than 80,000 participating nonprofits, 150 network partners and 8 million visitors each year. Founded in 1998, VolunteerMatch offers solutions to make it easier for individuals, nonprofits and companies to make a difference. Since its launch, VolunteerMatch has helped nonprofits attract more than $2 billion worth of volunteer services. VolunteerMatch is a two-time Webby Award winner, a Smithsonian inductee, and has been recognized for its work by The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Time, Oprah Winfrey and Presidents Clinton and Bush. To learn more, visit www.volunteermatch.org.
