IBM's Celebration of Service honored our employees, retirees, families and friends in their commitment to volunteer service throughout 2011. It supported their efforts with resources, a program of new and expanded grants, and the opportunity to pledge their participation in a global effort.
Human Services
Community & Economic
Development
K to 12 Education
Health
Culture
Higher/Other Education
Disaster
Environment
Other
26%
Development
23%
27%
3%
3%
3%
2%
2%
11%
The colors in the circles for each region show the portion of volunteer time devoted to each service category from the left column.
Join our Global Celebration of Service
Volunteering resources you can use
IBM's community service initiative, On Demand Community, provides resources that make volunteering simple and effective. As part of the Celebration of Service, IBM is sharing guides to some of our volunteers' most successful activities, along with supporting materials you can use in your own community. Most resources are available in a range of languages.
Stories of service
During the Celebration of Service, IBM volunteers, in unprecedented numbers, made history by sharing their time, skills and expertise at schools and community organizations worldwide.
Read the first story of success which is a compilation of volunteer activities that were conducted on IBM's Celebration of Service Day, June 15, 2011. The numbers grew to more than 300,000 IBMers in 120 countries logging over 3 million hours on over 5,000 projects. Read about the impact that some of the volunteers made.
IBM Celebration of Service Grants
This new program supported IBMers' service with grants of cash or equipment to the schools and organizations where IBMers volunteer. It expanded the existing IBM Community Grants program, and added two new grants. Catalyst Grants provided $10,000 to support projects by volunteer teams that apply their professional skills or improve their communities' sustainability. Centennial Grants funded projects that apply IBM's smarter planet strategies to community service, with 11 grants totaling nearly $1 million awarded worldwide in July 2011.
Service Jam: A global dialogue about service
In October 2010, IBM's groundbreaking Service Jam brought together thousands of participants from non-profit organizations, corporations, academic institutions, and government agencies in a series of online discussions on the future of service. IBM has produced a white paper summarizing its key findings and highlighting the creative ideas for social innovation that emerged. We encourage anyone interested in service to read and share the report, and use it to help innovate, design and improve service programs.
On Demand Community
The Celebration of Service builds on a model for empowering volunteers developed through On Demand Community. Launched in 2003, the program enables employees and retirees to find volunteer activities and identify skills and expertise they can contribute to a cause. In June 2010, On Demand Community passed 10 million service hours logged since inception by more than 150,000 participants. This year, we're hoping to increase this number significantly through our worldwide Celebration of Service.