April is World Volunteer Month. All month lengthy, we’re recognizing a number of the methods Cisco staff give their time, expertise, and experience of their communities.
In 1991, the US established April as Nationwide Volunteer Month. At this time, that scope has expanded, and it’s acknowledged as World Volunteer Month. Since Cisco’s founding 40 years in the past, giving again to our communities has been part of our custom.
Giving again as a behavior is a part of what it means to work at Cisco immediately. It’s an essential side of our tradition and supported by a wide range of applications. Merely put, our staff love to assist their communities and Cisco helps their efforts.
Staff Volunteer, Cisco Donates
Our industry-leading Matching Items Program matches eligible worker money and inventory donations dollar-for-dollar as much as $10,000 annually—but it surely’s not simply financial donations which can be eligible for matches. By this system, staff may also get their volunteer time matched with a $10-per-hour donation from Cisco to the group the place they gave their time.
In FY24, staff gave 720,000 hours in volunteer time and used the Matching Items Program to get their eligible hours matched with a donation from Cisco.
For instance, in Kraków, staff just lately partnered with Hearty Basis, a neighborhood group that helps youngsters’s training and social welfare. Cisco staff organized a collection of workshops for college kids centered on cyber safety, programming, and different important digital expertise. In addition they developed a full-day Future STEM Heroes occasion designed to ignite an curiosity in science and know-how. Altogether, staff volunteered 36 hours of their time to assist college students leading to a Cisco donation of $3,600 to the inspiration.
In London, our Meraki Provides EMEA chapter organized a digital volunteering occasion with the Psychiatry Analysis Belief. Staff from across the globe attended and realized concerning the group’s groundbreaking analysis, in addition to the significance of each resilience in our communities and the worth of decreasing psychological well being stigma.
“Cisco’s $10 match per volunteer hour added a particular dimension to our partnership with the Belief,” stated Meraki Provides World Co-lead Racha Tfaili. “By getting their time matched with donations, staff not solely realized concerning the essential work this group is doing, in addition they raised greater than $3,500 to maintain this crucial analysis going.”
At all times-On Alternatives
Our always-on Group Impression Portal is a digital device that permits staff each to prepare volunteer occasions for others to affix and to join volunteering. Volunteering could be in-person, digital, or team-based. Our staff volunteer for the whole lot from native meals kitchens to worldwide assist organizations to digital camps that assist children find out about know-how.
“In FY24, our buyer engineering group had 100% participation in volunteering” says Buyer Supply Chief Monica Huerta Castillo. “Cisco’s Group Impression Portal helped us determine volunteer alternatives. We’ve finished the whole lot from digital volunteering to on-site actions to going out to volunteer on initiatives within the subject. We do it as a result of it’s a part of who we’re. We additionally discover that our group tradition—which incorporates our values of belief, humility, empathy, and curiosity—is strengthened once we volunteer collectively. If we are able to affect the world as a group, think about what we are able to do inside Cisco!”
In 2025, we’re making it simpler for workers to search out and be part of volunteer occasions by way of our new companywide quarterly World Week of Giving. Began organically by one in every of our enterprise models, we acknowledged the ability of a centered week that brings our staff collectively. That’s why we’re increasing this system to be out there to all staff. We accomplice with neighborhood teams in focus areas comparable to training, sustainability, meals safety, and poverty.
Paid Time Off for Volunteering
One other means we help worker volunteerism is thru our Time2Give profit, which supplies every worker as much as 10 days of paid break day per 12 months to volunteer. Some staff have taken a two-week block to journey on worldwide volunteer missions. Others unfold their trip with common volunteering in colleges. Nonetheless others have used their time to present specialised expertise to nonprofits comparable to coding and professional bono authorized work.
Stella Au, an govt assistant in New York, traveled to Vietnam the place she was joined by six Cisco colleagues from Australia. Collectively, they used their Time2Give advantages to assist construct a house for 2 sisters in Thai Binh. “I traded my laptop computer for shovel and trowel and bought my palms soiled—mixing cement, chopping metal wires, and laying bricks,” stated Au. “One of many new householders burst into tears overwhelmed with pleasure that she not has to run to a neighbor’s home each time it rains. That’s when it actually hit me: this was greater than only a home—we have been constructing safety, hope, and a brighter future. Cisco’s Time2Give made it attainable for me to do that.”
It All Provides Up
In FY16, we set a objective to have 80% of staff give again to their communities at the least as soon as within the 12 months by 2020. We achieved this milestone and have sustained it annually since.
One of many methods we did this was by recognizing that giving again takes numerous completely different varieties. Organized volunteer efforts have worth, however so can doing one thing good for a neighbor in want. That’s why staff may also contribute to our 80% objective by way of Cisco Citizen, a program that acknowledges volunteer efforts not coated by different applications.
In FY24, we as soon as once more hit our 80% objective with 70,000 Cisco staff all over the world appearing in service of individuals, planet, and society.
“I really feel very lucky to work for a corporation that cares for not solely staff’ wellbeing, but in addition our communities and setting,” stated Digital Advertising and marketing Supervisor Vivien Chia, who can also be the APJC Lead for Cisco’s Inexperienced Workforce Community. “For my part, giving again has the ability to unite folks to come back collectively to make better impacts. Much more vital and significant impacts could be made when there may be help from companies. By the Matching Items Program, Time2Give, and the Cisco Citizen volunteer monitoring program, we are able to elevate extra consciousness and expedite pressing change.”
Making a Collective Impression
Our collective actions have contributed to constructing a tradition the place serving communities in want has change into a part of our DNA. Participating at scale allows us to donate extra to nonprofits, reply to extra crises, enhance volunteering help, and do extra good for the world.
Throughout World Volunteer Month, we acknowledge and rejoice all of the methods our staff make a constructive affect.
To study extra concerning the affect Cisco staff are making, take a look at our “What We Completed” eBook about how we’ve got supported our staff’ giving again efforts and reworked our collective contributions within the course of.
Share:
