Social Impact & Volunteering

Impact at Work: Center for Transforming Lives

On Giving Tuesday, we’re highlighting a project with a talented team from Fidelity Investments and its nonprofit partner, The Center for Transforming Lives (CTL). CTL has provided safe housing, early childhood education, and financial empowerment services for economically disadvantaged women and children in the Texas community for over 100 years. CTL impacted 3,814 women, children, and families in fiscal year 2016 alone; however, the organization’s previous website failed to lift up their vast impact. The site was static, outdated, and challenging for staff to maintain. To better showcase their impact on the community, CTL partnered with a team of technologists from Fidelity Investments to build a new, user-friendly website on the Wix platform.

Social Impact & Volunteering

Impact at Work: Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina

This month, we’re highlighting a project with a talented team from Fidelity Investments and its nonprofit partner, Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina (RTF), whose mission is to support and partner with local universities, create jobs, and lift up all the citizens of North Carolina by providing a positive economic and social impact. RTF manages the Research Triangle Park (RTP), the nation’s largest business park, and creates economic development by attracting and retaining over 200 innovative companies, driving business, university, and government collaboration, and by offering knowledge-based programming and incubation spaces such as The Frontier – a co-working space for entrepreneurs, small businesses, and nonprofits.

Research, Reports & Publications

Nearly 3.5 Million More People Improve Their Housing Conditions with Habitat for Humanity

In the past year, thanks to generous donors and more than 2.1 million volunteers, Habitat for Humanity helped nearly 3.5 million people around the world build or improve an affordable place they can call home. With a “hand up” from Habitat, more families have acquired the skills, confidence and opportunity they need to build healthier, more financially stable lives.

Responsible Business & Employee Engagement

Microsoft’s World-Class Approach to Employee Engagement

In this video, Microsoft Philanthropies Director of Employee Engagement Karen Bergin reveals the strategies that elevated their company’s workplace giving and volunteering program to a record 74% participation rate (with 70,000 employees!).

Philanthropy & Cause Initiatives

Tackling Poverty in Appalachia

Those living in poverty in Eastern Kentucky, and Central Appalachia generally, deal with chronic and serious challenges. Much progress has been made in tackling poverty in Appalachia over the past 50 years, but pockets of severe rural poverty remain, particularly in Eastern Kentucky. While the average poverty rate in the 54 counties of Appalachian Kentucky fell from 60% in 1960 to 26% in 2010, rates are still high compared to the national average of 16%. Rates exceed 30% in more than a dozen counties, including those served by Christian Appalachian Project’s (CAP) programs.

Social Impact & Volunteering

Giving Tuesday Twitter Chat: A Year in Review Through the Lens of Skills-Based Volunteering

This year, Common Impact is hosting a Twitter chat on Tuesday, November 28th to reflect on a year in review through the lens of skills-based volunteering (SBV). In light of everything that happened over the past year, we will explore ways in which nonprofits and corporations are working together to building nonprofit capacity and enhance the social sector’s ability to meet their missions.

Education

Bringing Education to Rural India Through Technology

In September, 8 Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) employee volunteers traveled to Pune, India, as part of the HPE Leadership Through Service program. Their mission: to enhance a digital platform that will improve provide educational opportunities to 6 million underprivileged children.

Philanthropy & Cause Initiatives

Viacommunity Takes Talent for Good West

Last month, Viacommunity journeyed to Viacom’s Hollywood office, the Paramount Lot and the Nickelodeon Animation Studio in Burbank as part of an official West Coast launch of Talent for Good, Viacom’s skills-based volunteer program in conjunction with Catchafire.

The program kicked off with an exclusive Rapid Fire event in Hollywood. We matched five teams of Viacom and Paramount volunteers with one of five local nonprofit organizations to take part in a two-hour brainstorm, exploring solutions to each nonprofit’s challenges. All five teams then shared their solutions, forging connections with their colleagues and local nonprofits. Each organization left with clear next steps and tools to overcome their challenges and move closer to achieving their missions.

Awards, Ratings & Rankings

How a Data Engineer Used Tech Skills to Help Rescue 35,000 Disaster Victims

After spending a chaotic day on a boat rescuing people from Hurricane Harvey floodwaters, Matthew Marchetti set out to see if he could put his data engineering skills to work to find a more organized way to save those affected by the storm damage. He created a platform called CrowdSource Rescue to connect victims with volunteers while local officials and the U.S. Coast Guard were inundated with calls. Within hours of setting up the platform, Matthew received thousands of requests for rescue.

Responsible Business & Employee Engagement

Business Value of Pro Bono: Develop Talent and Build Leaders

Pro bono service is a powerful way to drive social change. Yet, many corporate employees looking to bring pro bono service to their company struggle to get buy-in from leadership and other key stakeholders. Although these stakeholders may understand the social value of pro bono, they don't always see the business value. If an initiative doesn't contribute to the bottom line, it's not seen as a worthwhile investment.

That's why Taproot developed the Business Value of Pro Bono, a new resource for the field that outlines six common business objectives that pro bono can help support. In addition to the social impact that pro bono can help drive, companies have a lot to gain from engaging their employees in pro bono initiatives.

Latest Campaigns

Housing affordability

We drive solutions to enable people to open doors to a safe and affordable place to call home, the foundation for wellness, dignity, and economic...

Drawdown Georgia

Informed by Project Drawdown, the world’s leading resource for climate solutions, Drawdown Georgia is the first state-centered effort to crowdsolve...

Policy and Regulation

Cascale shares insights regarding policy and regulation impacting the consumer goods industry, and highlights how it's supporting members prepare for...

Sustainability- Carnival Corporation's Way of Doing Business

Carnival’s approach to sustainability is a full-time commitment; it is not a cost of doing business, it is a way of doing business. We at Carnival...

Collective Action

Cascale shares updates on its efforts and initiatives geared toward activating its ecosystem to develop and scale solutions that drive collective...

FedEx | Opportunity

At FedEx, we’re as diverse as the world we serve. From Harlem to Hong Kong, from Sao Paulo to Sydney, the world of FedEx is all about connecting...

ESG Recognition

While our commitment to being a responsible corporation is not dependent on recognition, it is a great validation of our work when external...

LG Energy Efficiency

LG Electronics USA, Inc., based in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., is the North American subsidiary of LG Electronics, Inc., a $45 billion global force and...

Antea Group Brand

Antea Group Brand Content

Rethinking EHS Podcast

Join us as we travel the world to uncover real stories of impact—from landfills and energy transition to workplace safety, emerging contaminants, and...