It is estimated that 57 top companies in Ireland have contributed over €28 million to charities and community groups last year while employees racked up 231,668 volunteer hours.
From 2013-2017, Business in the Community Ireland has calculated that employees in some of Ireland’s largest companies have contributed a total of over 1 million volunteering hours to good causes in the country. The data is featured on an online interactive ‘Business Impact Map’ which gives a county-by-county breakdown of how 57 companies and their employees supported local community groups and charities during 2017.
The Business Impact Map shows that almost €12 million was given in cash donations; €9.7 million was contributed through in-kind donations and over €5.6 million was raised through employee fundraising. Employees also volunteered over 231,668 hours to local groups and projects during the year.
In 2017, the areas of health, community, education, poverty and youth were the best supported. Over €5m was donated to health with a further €4.5 being donated to communities and another €3.5m going towards education. Elsewhere, social issues of poverty and helping children and young people received sizeable contributions. Almost €3.5m was donated to poverty and over €2.7m given to children and youth.
The Business Impact Map was launched at an event yesterday in Dublin which was sponsored by Tesco Ireland featuring speakers from Boots, Symantec, Fidelity Investments, eir, Deloitte, ESB, PM Group and Momentum Support and the map can be viewed at http://livemaps.bitc.ie
According to the Edelman Trust Barometer results which were announced in January of this year, businesses are now expected to be “an agent of change” with 63% of respondents in Ireland calling on CEOs to “take the lead” on change rather than wait for government to impose it.
Speaking this week, Business in the Community Ireland Chief Executive, Tomás Sercovich said, "Employees want to work for companies that support their volunteering efforts and crucially want to work where their values align with their employer. Companies know that by engaging in tackling social issues it can drive employee engagement and also can attract and retain the best talent as employees now expect their employers to have a community strategy in place as standard."
Source: www.businessworld.ie
