Cisco CEO John Chambers believes giving back is not only the right thing to do, but good for business, too. The entire management team believes Corporate Social Responsibility is the foundation for their business—and it shows in how they treat their employees, the environment, their customers, and their communities. Cisco really makes a difference through their employee volunteer program, called Cisco Citizens.

During fiscal year 2007, Cisco employees volunteered over 168,000 hours in their communities and around the world. From one-day team building projects to long-term initiatives, Cisco Citizens are busy volunteers! Many projects are researched and planned by their Civic Councils, teams of employee leaders who are passionate about giving back to their communities. The Civic Councils also develop partnerships with nonprofits, coordinate product donations, and facilitate grants.

Cisco’s Volunteer Connection Tool is a matching system that brings employees and volunteer opportunities together. This powerful tool matches employee skills with nonprofit organization (NPO) needs. NPOs can register online and request Cisco volunteers for specific projects, jobs, or even mentorships. It also allows volunteer coordinators to recruit, track, manage and communicate with their volunteers from Cisco quickly and efficiently.

The Cisco Foundation matches employees’ time donations with cash contributions to qualifying NPOs. The Foundation encourages all Cisco employees to volunteer at least one day a year to qualified charities in a company-wide effort to strengthen employees’ ties to their communities.

In other displays of Corporate Social Responsibility, Cisco supports boardnetUSA, a website that helps link interested community leaders with nonprofits that need board members, and holds an annual Holiday Global Hunger Relief Drive. These two programs educate Cisco employees about issues in their communities and around the world, and show them how they can make a difference—all with the staunch support of their employer.

As Cisco demonstrates, corporate volunteer programs are good for the communities they serve and for business, too. Customer good will, employee loyalty, and positive press coverage is priceless for any size company.

Tags: Cisco Citizen Volunteers, Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Volunteer Program, John Chambers

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 7th, 2009 at and is filed under Volunteer Management, Volunteer Trends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.