NortonLifeLock Named One of the 50 Most Community-Minded U.S. Companies

By Kim Allman, Head of Corporate Responsibility and Government Affairs

I’m so very proud to announce that today, NortonLifeLock has been listed as one of the 50 most community-minded companies in the U.S. We have long been committed to driving a culture of giving and we are thrilled to again be recognized for our social impact efforts. 

Now in its 10th year, the Civic 50 (an initiative of Points of Light) recognizes the most community-minded companies in the U.S. each year. The Civic 50 rates companies based on four dimensions of their community engagement and social impact programs: investment of resources, integration across business functions, institutionalization through policies and systems, and impact measurement.

We take being community-minded seriously. We are intentional in our philanthropy and work hard to create tangible, authentic impact. As a company focused on Cyber Safety, we provide digital safety education and training through partnerships with nonprofits that help children, women, families, and under-represented communities stay safe online.

As an example, in 2021, we committed $1 million to the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) to expand our co-developed Surf Smart 2.0 program. This badge program teaches girls and young women to communicate, learn, have fun, raise their voices as responsible citizens, and stay safe while using the internet. To date, the program has reached 550,000 girls and young women in 44 countries. NortonLifeLock employees will also have the opportunity to join learning sessions hosted by WAGGGS, hear from girl scouts that have completed Surf Smart 2.0, and volunteer their time through skill sharing workshops. 

Being a community-minded business also means acknowledging the lack of diversity in the tech sector and addressing it. To do this, we fund organizations including Out & Equal, Disability:In, and the Reboot Representation Tech Coalition, which is committed to doubling the number of Black, Latina, and Native American women graduating with computing degrees by 2025. Our investments each year help bring more representation into the technology workforce and reinforce our internal goal to hire more diverse team members. 

Product donations are another important aspect of our community engagement program. Nonprofits worldwide face rising demands on their services and often lack resources to secure employee and volunteer digital information. We give product directly to nonprofits that need it and to TechSoup, which helps us increase the reach of our donations. In FY21, our products helped more than 9,900 nonprofits and public libraries keep their devices and data secure.

Additionally, we believe that volunteering is both critical to a thriving community and important to our business as it brings employees together and teaches valuable skills applicable to the workplace, such as teamwork, problem-solving, and leadership. Employees across the company, including our senior leaders volunteer. As an example, our CEO, Vincent Pilette, led a volunteer event to support the Kids in Need Foundation, providing students with the tools they need to participate and succeed in the classroom and beyond. And Natalie Derse, our CFO, hosted an event with Pencils of Promise, a global nonprofit working towards equitable education access.

Finally, our research teams also focus on social impact, and in FY21, worked to address disinformation and cyberbullying. Norton Labs created BotSight, a free tool capable of identifying and flagging bots and disinformation on Twitter, and a prototype named Detox to analyze online content and identify hateful speech and cyberbullying.

We are honored to again be a part of the Civic 50 list, and we congratulate the other honorees. Together, we are contributing to making the world a better place. See the full list of Civic 50 honorees here.