Community

• Community Relations and Corporate Philanthropy
• Employee Engagement
• Product Donation

Symantec’s Community Relations and Corporate Philanthropy Program strives to have a positive impact on our local communities around the globe. We focus our activities in the areas of corporate philanthropy and community relations, employee engagement, and software donations.

Symantec phased out “quality of life” grants in FY09. We therefore expect the “Miscellaneous” grant category (as shown in the chart above) to constitute a considerably smaller percentage of our total giving in future years.

Symantec Scholarship Information
The Orem site, with funding from Symantec Corporate Giving, continues to provide four $10,000 scholarships intended to encourage high school students to study math and science. The candidates for the scholarships are chosen annually from those who participate in the Utah state science fairs and who write software as part of their science project. Software developers from the Orem site judge the projects and select the winners. The scholarships are awarded in March at the regional science fairs.

Disaster Relief
In recent years, we have seen disaster strike communities around the world with little notice and to tragic effect. Symantec has responded by providing financial support to organizations providing relief on the front lines, including the American Red Cross, Save the Children, Habitat for Humanity, America’s Second Harvest, and the Japanese Red Cross Society.

Australian Brushfire Appeal

In response to last year’s devastating brushfires in Australia, Symantec employees donated more than 30 boxes of clothing and linen to the Salvation Army and AUD$11,030. Symantec also matched employee contributions dollar-for-dollar.

Volunteerism
We believe that communities where Symantec maintains office locations should be healthier and more vibrant because of our presence. Since our employees are best positioned to understand the needs of their own communities, Symantec organizes volunteer-led community relations committees at each of our major sites worldwide. These volunteer committees make grant recommendations, organize volunteer events for employees, and provide input on the issues most affecting community members’ quality of life.

Beginning in FY10, we restructured our site-level community relations committees to focus more heavily on volunteerism, specifically around our four philanthropic focus areas. In the first quarter of FY10, we asked every site around the globe to organize at least one environmentally-themed volunteer activity. In most cases, our community relations committees partnered with their site’s Green Team to plan and execute these activities. Many of the best practices were also written up in Symantec’s Global Green News newsletter.

Dollars for Doers and the Matching Gift Program
Symantec’s Dollars for Doers Program encourages and rewards sustained volunteerism by making a monetary contribution to organizations where employees volunteer their time. Symantec makes a $15 donation for every hour of volunteer service that an employee contributes, beginning with one hour of service. In turn, our Employee Matching Gift Program matches employee donations to eligible charities dollar-for-dollar. The Dollars for Doers and Matching Gift programs each have a maximum cash donation equivalent of $1,000 per employee per calendar year.

In 2009, we lowered our minimum eligible cash donation to $1 for all matching gifts. We also eliminated the need for nonprofit organizations to sign verification forms regarding employees’ volunteer hours. This change will make the Dollars for Doers program more efficient and effective in years to come, because it eliminates the possibility of lost forms and streamlines the process for our employees.

CDC Learning Camp welcomes hearing impaired students in Beijing, China

The CDC Learning Camp is a two-week field-learning program designed to provide under-privileged students with experience working at world-class research and development facilities in Beijing, China. More than 40 Symantec employees participated in the first CDC Learning Camp, which accommodated 10 computer majors from Tianjin Engineering University for the Hearing Impaired. The program was received well by students and volunteers alike. Symantec is using their feedback to develop a standard curriculum for future Learning Camps in China.

Product Donation

Symantec is committed to ensuring that the organizations that strengthen our communities are free to apply their financial and intellectual resources to mission-based activities, rather than to the procurement of software products necessary for their day-to-day functioning. In FY09, Symantec donated nearly $16 million in software product to nonprofit organizations.

The top three software titles donated were as follows:

We have expanded our product donation program globally. For example, Symantec was able to help the Freeplay Foundation, an organization operating out of London, England and Cape Town, South Africa. Freeplay delivers wind-up radios and other sustainable technologies to connect people in the developing world to vital broadcast information. Symantec’s donation of Norton AntiVirus™ software enabled Freeplay to protect office systems without having to divert money from its important projects.

Symantec also partners with TechSoup Stock, a product philanthropy program of Tech Soup. Through this partnership, nonprofit organizations can access Symantec software products to protect their computer systems from online threats. In just one example, the donation of Symantec Mail Security 6.0 software has enabled Freedom Service Dogs, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to training and placing assistance dogs with individuals living with disabilities in Colorado, to modernize its technical infrastructure and communicate with confidence and security.

If you would like to learn more about our program, visit our software donation page.