Our “Avanade Gives” monthly blog series showcases the fantastic community initiatives that our people support across the globe. This month Courtney Lockyer shares how Avanade people have been supporting the causes that matter most to them through our new employee giving platform.

Corporate Citizenship at Avanade is about giving back to realise results within our communities. We think globally and act locally, ensuring our giving reaches the people and communities we want to help. That’s why we launched Avanade Gives, our workplace giving tool that enables our people to make personal and financial contributions to the causes that matter most to them, furthering Avanade’s philanthropic goals and improving the quality of life in the places they live and work around the globe.

Through Avanade Gives we offer our Corporate Match Giving Program, where our people can have their financial charitable contributions matched by Avanade. Each of our employees have a personal match allowance of $250 per fiscal year. We began launching Avanade Gives in early 2017 and since then our people have generously donated close to $55,000 to charities across the world. With Corporate Match Giving, it’s taken the total up to over $100,000!

One of the great things about Avanade Gives is that it allows us to set up fundraising campaigns and coordinate our giving activities across the business. We see this on a small scale every day, with our people using Avanade Gives to fundraise for triathlons or marathon’s they are taking part in, in support of different causes. We also see this on a larger scale, for example in response to humanitarian disasters such as the recent hurricanes, Avanade Gives has been a way for our people to come together and show an incredible surge of support for the people and communities affected.

In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, we set up a giving opportunity on Avanade Gives, raising much needed funds for charities supporting the relief effort. Our people gave, and continue to give generously, and we are pleased to announce that across Avanade we have raised $15,000 to help the communities that have been victims of this devastation. In addition to this, our Corporate Match Giving program has contributed a further $14,000, taking the total amount raised to $29,000.

We have also heard some fantastic stories of our people going out into the communities affected to help in the long process of recovery. Our Avanade Southwest Community Leads (US) helped organise a team of people to volunteer their time on a Saturday to help homeowners affected by the disaster. Our 30 volunteers, made up of employees and their family and friends, helped clear a huge amount of debris from front yards as part of the clean-up process.

Times like this remind all of us of the compassion that we have for one another, from the overwhelming support shown in times of adversity to the small contributions we make every day.

I feel very proud to be part of a company that is a good global citizen and actively encourages its people to have a lasting positive impact on the communities in which we live and work. Avanade Gives is just one way in which we achieve that and I am excited about the opportunities that lie ahead for us to make meaningful contributions as we approach Giving Tuesday and the Holiday season.