Symantec’s Community Relations and Corporate Philanthropy Program strives to have a positive impact on our local communities around the globe. We focus our activities in the areas of corporate philanthropy and community relations, employee engagement, and software donations.
Community Relations and Corporate Philanthropy
In FY08, Symantec’s primary philanthropic focus was on education. We identified several special interest areas, including: eliminating the achievement gap between affluent and economically challenged school districts; encouraging more students to pursue careers in math and science; and increasing the diversity of our future workforce by helping to build a pipeline of women and minorities who are interested in and have access to quality programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
We will be updating our priority areas in FY09 to more specifically address:
Symantec works with both global and local organizations. We support Teach for America, Internet Keep Safe Coalition and Science Buddies, as well as smaller organizations such as Auckland Central Parents Center in New Zealand, Shirakami Mountains Preservation Center in Japan, and Sri Shakara School in India. We encourage our employees to get involved with these organizations by volunteering their time and talents.
- family online safety;
- strategic investment in helping students to pursue educational and career opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; and
- building a volunteer culture at Symantec that will help support civic engagement and personal involvement at the local level.
View our grant guidelines for information on proposal timelines and philanthropic focus.
Click here to apply for a grant.
In FY08 Symantec donated more than $16 million in cash and software to schools, nonprofit organizations, and local communities.
Giving in 2008
Giving in FY2008 was directed towards Symantec’s philanthropic focus areas of education, youth programs, and quality of life issues specific to the communities where the company has offices.
Symantec Scholarship Information
The Orem site, with funding from Symantec Corporate Giving, provides four $10,000 scholarships to be administered through the four Utah high school regional science fairs. These scholarships are intended to encourage high school students to study math and science. The candidates for the scholarships will be chosen from those who participate in the Utah state science fairs and who write software as part of their science project. Software developers from the Orem site will judge the projects and select the winners. The scholarships will be awarded in March at the regional science fairs.
Disaster Relief
In recent years, we have seen disaster strike communities around the world with little notice and to devastating effect. Symantec has responded by providing financial support to organizations providing relief on the front lines, including the American Red Cross, Save the Children, Habitat for Humanity, America’s Second Harvest, and the Japanese Red Cross Society.
Affordable Housing
Symantec knows that in a number of areas in which we have operations, access to affordable housing is a tremendous challenge. Consequently, we are investing in local communities to address this housing crisis. In 2005 Symantec donated $225,000 to the Housing Trust of Santa Clara County, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the creation of affordable housing opportunities. We also partner with Habitat for Humanity and other locally focused housing organizations such as the Tri-City Homeless Coalition in Fremont, and Shelter Network (www.shelternetwork.org) in San Mateo, California.
Employee Engagement
Volunteerism
We believe that communities where Symantec maintains office locations should be healthier and more vibrant because of our presence. Since our employees are best positioned to understand the needs of their own communities, Symantec organizes volunteer-led community relations committees at each of our major sites worldwide. These volunteer committees make grant recommendations, organize volunteer events for employees, and provide input on the issues most affecting community members’ quality of life.
25th Anniversary Volunteer Challenge
In celebration of Symantec’s 25th anniversary, the company challenged all employees to give back to their community by volunteering at least 25 hours over the course of the 2008 fiscal year. Employees reaching this goal were invited to select a nonprofit of their choice to receive a $1,000 Symantec grant. Additionally, the three employees with the highest number of volunteer hours were able to direct a $5,000 grant to their chosen nonprofit organization.
The Volunteer Challenge was a tremendous success, boosting volunteerism rates by more than 230 percent over the previous fiscal year. The 25-hour benchmark was achieved by 268 employees, resulting in challenge grant payouts of $301,000. Participating employees represented eight countries, including Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, Mexico, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Dollars for Doers and the Matching Gift Program
Symantec’s Dollars for Doers Program encourages and rewards sustained volunteerism by making a monetary contribution to organizations where employees volunteer their time. Symantec will make a $15 donation for every hour of volunteer service that an employee contributes (with a minimum of 5 hours at an organization). Our Employee Matching Gift Program matches employee donations to eligible charities dollar for dollar. The Dollars for Doers and Matching Gift programs share a combined maximum cash donation equivalent of $1,000 per employee per calendar year.
Product Donation
Symantec is committed to ensuring that the organizations that strengthen our communities are free to apply their financial and intellectual resources to mission-based activities, rather than to the procurement of software products necessary for their day-to-day functioning. In FY08, Symantec donated nearly $12 million in product to nonprofit organizations. This included more than 17,000 software products, many of them containing multiple user licenses. The top three software titles donated were Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition (5,549 products), Norton AntiVirus (3,702 products), and Norton 360 (2,269 products).
We are expanding our product donation program globally, beyond the United States and Canada. For example, Symantec was able to help the Freeplay Foundation, an organization operating out of London, England and Cape Town, South Africa. Freeplay delivers wind-up radios and other sustainable technologies to connect people in the developing world to vital broadcast information. Symantec’s donation of Norton AntiVirus™ software enabled Freeplay to protect office systems without having to divert money from its important projects.
Symantec also partners with TechSoup Stock, a product philanthropy program of Tech Soup. Through this partnership, nonprofit organizations can access Symantec software products to protect their computer systems from online threats.
If you would like to learn more about our program, visit our software donation page for more information.