Employee Involvement

In 2010, more than 7,850 Baxter employees volunteered more than 163,000 hours in their communities, helping to address local concerns such as healthcare and education. Employee involvement takes many forms, including volunteering at a local school or blood drive, serving at a hospital or food pantry, participating in community park clean-up days, or joining a local non-profit board or committee. Employees at each Baxter site select volunteer activities to undertake and organizations to support, as they can best determine the most relevant and highest impact projects.

In 2010, for example, Baxter Japan committed to a forestation program in which employees and their families will plant 2,500 trees in a remote area of Nichinan City and contribute funds to promote forestation in the next 10 years. Also, Baxter Mexico partnered with La Casa De Los Mil Colores, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping indigenous peoples, to financially support patients with critical medical needs.

For the past several years, Baxter employees around the world have helped improve communities by volunteering with Habitat for Humanity. Since 2006, Baxter employees in Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, France, India, Ireland, Switzerland and the United States have spent more than 19,000 hours building homes for those in need. (See Case Study: Rebuilding Lives, One House at a Time.)

Employees can track their efforts using Baxter's internal volunteerism website. In 2008, the company began to recognize employees who volunteer for 40 or more hours of community work during the year. Employees who donate 75 or more hours a year are eligible for a random drawing in which selected employees choose an approved charitable group to which Baxter will donate $1,000 in the employee's name. Thirty employees were selected in 2010, out of 540 globally who volunteered at least 75 hours. Over 900 Baxter employees reached either the 40- or 75-hour milestones during the year.

In the United States, The Baxter International Foundation Dollars for Doers program provides grants to qualified organizations in which Baxter employees have actively volunteered at least six months of the year. Past recipients include hospitals and hospices, humane societies, emergency shelters, historical societies, volunteer fire departments, substance-abuse prevention services and youth service organizations. In 2010, the program provided 71 grants to 48 organizations for a total of $29,025.

Baxter employees also contribute financial resources to worthy causes. The Baxter International Foundation Matching Gift Program matches employee donations of $25 or more, up to $5,000, to non-profit, tax-exempt U.S. hospitals and healthcare agencies, schools and cultural organizations. In 2010, the foundation matched nearly 1,300 qualifying employee donations to contribute a total of $706,910 to organizations in need.