April is International Volunteer Month. All month lengthy, we’re recognizing among the methods Cisco workers give their time, expertise, and experience of their communities.
In 1991, the US established April as Nationwide Volunteer Month. At this time, that scope has expanded, and it’s acknowledged as International Volunteer Month. Since Cisco’s founding 40 years in the past, giving again to our communities has been part of our custom.
Giving again as a behavior is a part of what it means to work at Cisco as we speak. It’s an necessary facet of our tradition and supported by a wide range of packages. Merely put, our workers love to assist their communities and Cisco helps their efforts.
Workers Volunteer, Cisco Donates
Our industry-leading Matching Presents Program matches eligible worker money and inventory donations dollar-for-dollar as much as $10,000 annually—however it’s not simply financial donations which are eligible for matches. By this system, workers also can get their volunteer time matched with a $10-per-hour donation from Cisco to the group the place they gave their time.
In FY24, workers gave 720,000 hours in volunteer time and used the Matching Presents Program to get their eligible hours matched with a donation from Cisco.
For instance, in Kraków, workers just lately partnered with Hearty Basis, an area group that helps kids’s schooling and social welfare. Cisco workers organized a sequence of workshops for college kids targeted on cyber safety, programming, and different important digital expertise. Additionally they developed a full-day Future STEM Heroes occasion designed to ignite an curiosity in science and expertise. Altogether, workers volunteered 36 hours of their time to assist college students leading to a Cisco donation of $3,600 to the inspiration.
In London, our Meraki Provides EMEA chapter organized a digital volunteering occasion with the Psychiatry Analysis Belief. Workers from across the globe attended and discovered in regards to the group’s groundbreaking analysis, in addition to the significance of each resilience in our communities and the worth of decreasing psychological well being stigma.
“Cisco’s $10 match per volunteer hour added a particular dimension to our partnership with the Belief,” stated Meraki Provides International Co-lead Racha Tfaili. “By getting their time matched with donations, workers not solely discovered in regards to the necessary work this group is doing, in addition they raised greater than $3,500 to maintain this crucial analysis going.”
All the time-On Alternatives
Our always-on Group Influence Portal is a digital instrument that permits workers each to arrange volunteer occasions for others to affix and to join volunteering. Volunteering will be in-person, digital, or team-based. Our workers volunteer for every thing from native meals kitchens to worldwide help organizations to digital camps that assist children study expertise.
“In FY24, our buyer engineering staff had 100% participation in volunteering” says Buyer Supply Chief Monica Huerta Castillo. “Cisco’s Group Influence Portal helped us determine volunteer alternatives. We’ve achieved every thing from digital volunteering to on-site actions to going out to volunteer on initiatives within the discipline. We do it as a result of it’s a part of who we’re. We additionally discover that our staff tradition—which incorporates our values of belief, humility, empathy, and curiosity—is strengthened after we volunteer collectively. If we are able to affect the world as a staff, think about what we are able to do inside Cisco!”
In 2025, we’re making it simpler for workers to seek out and be part of volunteer occasions via our new companywide quarterly International Week of Giving. Began organically by one in all our enterprise items, we acknowledged the ability of a targeted week that brings our workers collectively. That’s why we’re increasing this system to be obtainable to all workers. We companion with neighborhood teams in focus areas similar to schooling, sustainability, meals safety, and poverty.
Paid Time Off for Volunteering
One other manner we help worker volunteerism is thru our Time2Give profit, which gives every worker as much as 10 days of paid day off per 12 months to volunteer. Some workers have taken a two-week block to journey on worldwide volunteer missions. Others unfold their outing with common volunteering in colleges. Nonetheless others have used their time to offer specialised expertise to nonprofits similar to coding and professional bono authorized work.
Stella Au, an government assistant in New York, traveled to Vietnam the place she was joined by six Cisco colleagues from Australia. Collectively, they used their Time2Give advantages to assist construct a house for 2 sisters in Thai Binh. “I traded my laptop computer for shovel and trowel and bought my arms soiled—mixing cement, chopping metal wires, and laying bricks,” stated Au. “One of many new householders burst into tears overwhelmed with pleasure that she not has to run to a neighbor’s home each time it rains. That’s when it actually hit me: this was greater than only a home—we have been constructing safety, hope, and a brighter future. Cisco’s Time2Give made it doable for me to do that.”
It All Provides Up
In FY16, we set a purpose to have 80% of workers give again to their communities a minimum of as soon as within the 12 months by 2020. We achieved this milestone and have sustained it annually since.
One of many methods we did this was by recognizing that giving again takes plenty of totally different kinds. Organized volunteer efforts have worth, however so can doing one thing good for a neighbor in want. That’s why workers also can contribute to our 80% purpose via Cisco Citizen, a program that acknowledges volunteer efforts not lined by different packages.
In FY24, we as soon as once more hit our 80% purpose with 70,000 Cisco workers all over the world performing in service of individuals, planet, and society.
“I really feel very lucky to work for an organization that cares for not solely workers’ wellbeing, but in addition our communities and surroundings,” stated Digital Advertising Supervisor Vivien Chia, who can also be the APJC Lead for Cisco’s Inexperienced Crew Community. “For my part, giving again has the ability to unite individuals to return collectively to make better impacts. Much more important and significant impacts will be made when there’s help from companies. By the Matching Presents Program, Time2Give, and the Cisco Citizen volunteer monitoring program, we are able to elevate extra consciousness and expedite pressing change.”
Making a Collective Influence
Our collective actions have contributed to constructing a tradition the place serving communities in want has turn into a part of our DNA. Participating at scale allows us to donate extra to nonprofits, reply to extra crises, improve volunteering help, and do extra good for the world.
Throughout International Volunteer Month, we acknowledge and have a good time all of the methods our workers make a optimistic affect.
To be taught extra in regards to the affect Cisco workers are making, try our “What We Completed” eBook about how we’ve supported our workers’ giving again efforts and reworked our collective contributions within the course of.
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