Community Service 2009 Company of the Week

October 4, 2009

Nationwide

Nationwide's primary corporate citizenship strategic focus is to provide emergency and basic needs to communities where its employees live and work. In support of this strategy, Nationwide announced its national partnership with Feeding America this year. Its corporate citizenship efforts play out through three focus areas: philanthropy, volunteerism and workplace giving.

The Nationwide Insurance Foundation provides philanthropic support to food banks in 15 communities where Nationwide has satellite offices. Nationwide employees support the partnership through their volunteerism and workplace giving campaigns.

Two examples of different local programs delivering results are those at Nationwide’s largest employment locations in Columbus, Ohio and Des Moines, Iowa.

In Columbus, Nationwide has supported the Mid-Ohio Foodbank’s Operation Feed campaign since 1981. Approximately 30 percent of the meals raised by the Foodbank’s campaign are provided by Nationwide and 25 percent of their volunteers are Nationwide employees.

Nationwide’s hunger-relief efforts in Iowa focus on children. For the Foodbank of Iowa, Nationwide employees collect food donations for the Backpack Buddies program. Donated food items are used to assemble weekend meals for children during the summer.

At Nationwide’s other employment centers, the employees incorporate competition into the workplace hunger-relief programs in their communities. In Harrisburg, Pa., they host a summer food drive for the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank. In Akron, Ohio, Nationwide’s employees who donate to the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank can wear jeans on Fridays. Employees in Scottsdale, Ariz. raised $1,800 and 9,975 pounds of food for the St. Mary’s Food Bank through their month-long food drive.   

Nationwide recognizes the importance of volunteerism to its partnership with Feeding America. As a thank-you to its employees who volunteer at least 25 hours with a particular nonprofit organization, the company awards a grant to the organization along with paid time off for the employee.

Since September 2005, Nationwide employees have volunteered 12,087 hours towards hunger relief.

For more information on Community Service 2009, please visit www.financialcommunityservice.org.

Click Here to view a list of our past Companies of the Week.