Community Involvement

By reducing their environmental footprint and increasing awareness of recycling and other "green" initiatives, Consumers Energy is bettering the communities in which they live, work and play.

Two Xylem employees were honored by the Forest Reserve District of Will County with the Appreciation of Partners Award for the volunteer contributions of employees from Xylem's Mokena office on behalf of Xylem Watermark in 2017. Volunteer activities included clean-up efforts at the Forest Preserve’s Monee Reservoir and Rock Run Rookery Preserve in Will County, Illinois.

From the young girl who gets to attend a science camp for free, to the family stranded in a shelter after a hurricane, to the sick child and his family aboard a Miracle Flight, on their way to receive specialized medical care. These are just some of the people Astellas USA Foundation helped in 2017 through partnerships and grants – and there are many more. Behind every grant, volunteer activity or funded event are people, all of whom were helped by Astellas USA Foundation.

Since the first day that I started working in corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the late 1980’s – under the wise tutelage of Reynold Levy, then president of the AT&T Foundation – I both learned and asserted that the purpose of any good corporate philanthropy or CSR program was to find the intersection between societal needs and the business interests of the company and to create real impact for both -- paying attention to a company’s various stakeholders and conducting your business in a responsible manner with an eye on the long-term value for business and society.

Life was all about sports for young Torieaun Hilbert — that is, until he met Doris Robinson. For Hilbert, a sophomore majoring in criminology and a football player at the University of La Verne, academics was not a priority when he started high school with a 2.2 GPA.

Last October, five Xylem volunteers from Chile, Germany, Sweden and the United States spent five days exploring the water environments of South Florida and collaborating with groups working to protect these unique environments. Activities were conducted in partnership with EarthEcho International, one of Xylems’ global nonprofit partners.

Mary Schell, Wendy’s® Chief Public Affairs Officer, recently spoke to the International Franchise Association about her goals for the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption in 2018 and beyond. With ambitions to dramatically scale the unique Wendy’s Wonderful Kids® recruiting model by convincing all 50 states to join those already on board to make this model their official approach to adoption, the end goal is simple: find a forever home for every child in the foster care system.

In a recent New York Times op-ed piece entitled, “Corporations Will Inherit the Earth,” Frank Bruni muses about the role of corporations in society at a time that the federal government is -- to use his phrase -- “a bumbling klutz.” Bruni asserts, “It can’t manage health care. It can’t master infrastructure. It can’t fund itself for more than tiny increments of time. It can barely stay open.” In contrast, he says, America’s corporations are operating “with an innovation and can-do ambition solely absent in Washington.”

For the ninth consecutive year, Wells Fargo is United Way Worldwide’s No. 1 workplace giving campaign in the U.S. More than 65,000 team members demonstrated their strong commitment to community service by giving $85 million to 40,000 nonprofit organizations and volunteering a record 2 million hours — valued at $48 million — in communities nationwide during the company’s employee giving campaign in 2017.support disaster relief and recovery efforts, veterans, military service members and their families, community revitalization, and environmental sustainability.