Verizon Book Drive and Corporate Social Responsibility

Posted by admin on 12.05.2007 at 11:38 am

Verizon Communications is leading the way in the development of a new and honest image for America’s most successful and profitable companies. Corporate Social Responsibility Programs are starting to becom more and more common at the largest companies in the United States. Verizon Communications has really stood out in this movement by establishing the Verizon Foundation.

“The Verizon Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Verizon Communications, is committed to improving literacy and K-12 education through its signature program Thinkfinity.org; fostering awareness and prevention of domestic violence; and promoting the use of technology in health-care delivery. In 2006, the foundation awarded more than $69 million in grants to nonprofit agencies in the United States and abroad. The foundation also matched charitable donations from Verizon employees and retirees, resulting in $29 million in combined contributions. Under the foundation’s Verizon Volunteer initiative, one of the nation’s largest employee-volunteer programs, company employees and retirees have also contributed nearly 3 million hours of community service since Verizon’s inception in 2000.” – CNN.com

I applaud Verizon Wireless and the work of the Verizon Foundation. Currently, they are in the midst of a month-long book drive where they are collecting 200,000 books to benefit at risk communities, in all of their corporate offices throughout the country. These books and this book drive will have a real impact on at-need populations.

Corporate Social Responsibility is important. The real power to “get things done,” things like ending illiteracy, homelessness, poverty, hunger, illness…the real power lies in the heart of global economic forces. Good businesses, making good money, and doing good things, is the most effective way to address a problem. We realize that here at Better World Books and it is what motivates the hard work of all of our employees. Clearly it also motivates those working with us at Verizon Wireless.

Vote with your dollar. Sign up for a Verizon Wireless plan.

For more information on Verizon Wireless, the Verizon Foundation, and Corporate Social Responsibility, please visit the following websites:

>Original Article

>Verizon Foundation

>What is Corporate Social Responsibility?

>What is a B Corporation?

Have your say » | Tagged Uncategorized, corporate giving, NCFL, Our Partners, verizon

Corporate Philanthropy Report

Posted by admin on 11.08.2007 at 12:37 pm

Here in the world of socially responsible companies and triple bottom lines we have our ear to the ground about corporate giving.  So when my colleague, Niko Tomlinson (Senior Midwest Director), sent me an email about www.CorporatePhilanthropy.org, I was obviously intrigued.  You’ll notice there’s a very informative–if somewhat dry–report on Corporate giving trends for the Fortune 100 as well as surveyed companies on the whole (get it at the link below).  The results were surprising but ultimately positive.

Niko did an excellent job of boiling down the N.B. parts of the report:

The lead stats:
Total giving increased-
-Median $ amount increased from $29.5 million to $32.6 million per year
-Median % increase of 4.8 per company
-Median total giving as a percentage of revenue was unchanged at 0.14%
-Median total giving as a percentage of pre-tax profit fell from 0.98% in 2005 to 0.93% in 2006
-SO… companies are giving a smaller percentage of their profits but the absolute dollar amount is greater.

Now I’m no economist (full disclosure: I was a Music and English major) but it doesn’t take an M.B.A. to tell you that more overall money from corporate giving is a good thing.  Hopefully this type of philanthropy will be seen as less of an added bonus to what a company is doing, and more of a necessity in company (and popular) culture.

Download and read the full report (.pdf format) at this link.

Have your say » | Tagged Uncategorized, charitable contributions, corporate giving