Goal
Our goal is to support charities that make a positive contribution to the communities in which we work.
Strategy
We are committed to working effectively with charitable partners to benefit our customers and the communities near our operations. Our Company Giving Policy focuses on supporting the armed forces, veterans and their families as well as education projects with a science, engineering and technology focus.
The Company makes donations to local, national and international charities and other not-for-profit organisations.
Charity Challenge is our Company-wide employee fundraising and volunteering programme. In the UK, US and Australia, employees elect partner charities for 18 month periods. During 2008/2009 our partner charities were Leukaemia Foundation (Australia), Sue Ryder Care (UK), and America Supports You (US).
Our total community investment (including our education programmes, see Education and early careers) was £13.8 million in 2009. This was made up of donations in time, cash and in-kind.
Employees continued to support our Charity Challenge partners throughout the rest of the year.
In Australia, employees volunteered to assist with the running of the annual ‘Light the Night’ event designed to acknowledge and give hope to people living with Leukaemia.
In 2009 the Australian state of Victoria experienced the worst and deadliest forest fires on record. Employees at a communications facility in rural Victoria found themselves at the centre of response efforts. They worked closely with emergency services to supply and maintain life saving radio communications used to co-ordinate response efforts with fire crews.
Employees provided support configuring and maintaining trailer mounted mobile radio stations used to boost signals between distant emergency teams. The extraordinary scale of the fires meant team members found themselves performing tasks outside their day-to-day responsibilities, such as escorting a refuelling vehicle to remote generators needed to maintain vital emergency services including local television and radio broadcasting facilities. The Company donated over £165,000 while our employees raised an additional £80,000 for the Australian Red Cross to help those in need. Employees were allowed special paid leave to help with the clear-up.
In the UK, employees volunteered their time to decorate residents’ rooms at Sue Ryder Care homes and organised collections for items to be sold at Sue Ryder Care shops.
Employees were also involved in several projects with the Royal British Legion in the build-up to Remembrance Day. Between August and October 2009, employees from sites across the country visited the Royal British Legion Factory making over 46,000 poppies. Some sites organised their own ‘poppy factories’ for employees to make poppies and our Submarine Solutions business visited local schools in order to talk about Remembrance Day and set the children a challenge to make poppies.
In the US, the Company and its employees supported a range of initiatives to help troops, their families and veterans. Activities included:
- Sponsorship of New Jersey’s largest homecoming parade since World War II for troops returning from Iraq. Twenty employees from our Electronic Solutions business helped organise the event.
- In Texas, Electronic Solutions provided video teleconferencing technology to enable parents serving overseas to watch their children performing in a live musical production and talk to them after the show.
- In Washington DC, employees donated school supplies for children from wounded military families.
- In 2009 employees from more than 12 sites participated in EI&S’s Operation Noble Cause, sending care packages to troops and raising more than £3,000 through fundraising events.
- The Company sponsored organisations including the Wounded Warriors Project and Team River Runner that support and help rehabilitate injured personnel.
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