Applied Materials Drives Global Impact with the Fight Against Hunger Campaign
Applied Materials is the leader in materials engineering solutions used to produce virtually every new chip and advanced display in the world. Applied leverages the YourCause CSRconnect platform to power their giving and volunteering programs globally, as well as supporting and amplifying the impact of specific campaigns such as its “Fight Against Hunger” campaign. This past year through the use of CSRconnect, Applied expanded this program to more than ten countries and raised over $1.6 million in employee donations. Donations were matched by the Applied Materials Foundation doubling the impact.
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The Fight Against Hunger program at Applied Materials, managed by the Global Community Affairs team, supports local food banks in areas where the company operates or has employees. Partnering with 62 food banks across various U.S. cities, Applied uses the YourCause CSRconnect platform to match employee donations, doubling their impact. During the one-month campaign, The Applied Materials Foundation offers unlimited donation matching.
While building the Fight Against Hunger brand, the community affairs team solicited feedback from their global sites on how to best speak to the issue of hunger in a way that transcends borders. Following the campaign’s success in North America, international ambassadors and employees expressed interest in replicating the initiative locally. Each country then adapted the strategy to create giving or volunteering initiatives in partnership with their local food-related organizations.
When the campaign expanded beyond the United States, “the YourCause partnership with CanadaHelps, UK Charities Trust, and Haus des Stiftens was very helpful in managing fund distribution to our partners outside the US,” said Michele Walker-Moak, global community affairs manager. In just a few years, Applied expanded its Fight Against Hunger matching programs from a few countries to over ten. Using CSRconnect, they raised and distributed more than $3.3 million in employee donations and matches last year.
“Navigating the complexities of vetting international charities and transferring funds from one country to another is challenging. Our YourCause customer success manager has been an invaluable partner, helping us create impactful global campaigns and addressing potential issues.”
Michele Walker-Moak
Global Community Affairs Manager, Applied Materials
For international expansion, openness to localization was crucial. Working with local experts and “purpose people” helped find community partners and navigate cultural nuances. Since CSRconnect was already used for regular giving, no change management was needed at a systems level, allowing employees to easily engage in philanthropy through a familiar process.
The community affairs team provided information and direction to employees globally by creating targeted Engagement Elements, highly flexible content tiles on the CSRconnect homepage, to highlight nonprofit partners in different regions that employees could donate to as part of the campaign. With CSRconnect’s segmentation, they were able to engage North America contractors as well by creating a different campaign site version that addressed associated legal issues.
Empowering Employee Champions
At Applied, employees throughout the company have an opportunity to assume a leadership role in promoting Fight Against Hunger. The leaders play a key part in activating motivation, communication, and participation in social impact efforts. For each campaign, the community affairs team partners with an executive champion as a spokesperson, business unit champions as leaders who encourage their teams, and captains who manage communications and fundraising events.
In a recent Fight Against Hunger campaign, Applied enhanced its impact by partnering with employee resource groups (ERGs). The campaign was led by a committee from their Young Professionals Network, which brought new energy and inspired engagement through communications like invitation videos. Due to this initiative’s success, Applied integrated ERG champions into its campaign leadership structure.
Custom Communication and Encouragement
Another large contributor to increase participation in CSR campaigns is relevant and specific communication that can encourage employee engagement. To achieve this, Applied utilized a unique feature of the CSRconnect platform – the questionnaire. When an employee donates to a food bank, they complete a questionnaire created by the community affairs team to capture important information. If employees were identified as first-time donors to the Fight Against Hunger campaign, they would receive specialized outreach and opportunities to enter into prize drawings to receive celebratory hoodies.
Employee donors can also self-select their business unit, and this is used by Applied to track funds raised per business unit and build out progress meters that are shared to employees so that they can view how much they have raised compared to last year. The capture and use of questionnaire data through the CSRconnect platform enable specific data analysis for various reporting purposes, as well as personalized messaging to encourage further participation and engagement.
Measuring Impact and Data Reporting
The reporting functionality within CSRconnect makes it easy to access all the data for funds raised by the different employee sites or business units and for each of the food banks. This means it is possible for Applied to celebrate how much they have raised for a specific food bank, including the company matching, in a timely manner.
Campaign funds come from various sources like donor advised funds, stock donations, cash, and credit cards. Managing these transactions and hosting the data in a centralized platform like CSRconnect saves time and ensures an accurate record of employee donations. The Applied Materials Foundation matches nuanced giving methods, such as stock donations, and tracks that by using the incentives features in CSRconnect, specifically Cause Cards, which are charitable gift cards equivalent to employees’ stock donations and can be donated to the same nonprofit organization.
Applied’s Fight Against Hunger campaign is a fantastic example of how a company can leverage technology and unique engagement strategies to make a significant impact for an important cause on a global scale.