Critical Community Needs
Communities worldwide have diverse needs beyond access to healthcare that Baxter helps address. These include improving education (see below), reducing medication errors and increasing patient safety, offering youth services, and protecting the environment. To help address these needs, Baxter’s business units, functions and manufacturing facilities contributed $28.92 million in 2008 to targeted organizations and causes worldwide, with nearly 58 percent donated outside the United States.
Baxter’s business units and functions make in-kind donations as well – such as the use of facilities or equipment. They also partner with local nonprofit organizations, participate in business associations, and support employees who donate their talent and expertise to benefit the community (see Employee Involvement). Baxter sites determine appropriate areas of focus to best meet local needs.
Education
As a science- and technology-based company, Baxter has a responsibility to help ensure that current students as well as future generations have every opportunity to learn and be inspired by math and science. In 2008, the company initiated its first formal effort in advancing science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education by unveiling a program aimed at students and teachers in the Chicago area, where Baxter is headquartered.
Baxter launched Science@Work: Expanding Minds with Real-World Science in October 2008. This five-year commitment to the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is the first program ever to fund biotech education in CPS history. It will engage CPS students in biotechnology curricula, offer teachers training in science education, provide funding for two new public schools and allow Baxter scientists to visit classrooms to share their passion for science. See Priority Update: Education for more detail.
Baxter facilities around the world support education initiatives in their local communities as well. For example, Baxter China supports Hope Schools, a program that develops infrastructure and systems to improve education in impoverished regions of Sichuan province. Baxter China has also initiated a program to teach English to deaf children in Shanghai and conducted education exchange programs for intellectually disabled students in a special education school.
