35 firms donate €17m to charity

THIRTY-FIVE Irish companies and their employees gave €17 million to charity last year — an average of €46,000 a day.

The companies have developed 3,235 community partnerships and donated over €17m in cash donations, in-kind donations and employee fundraising to charities and community groups.

This data, a fraction of what is contributed by Irish businesses each year, is being captured on an online project called the “Business Impact Map”, which gives a county-by-county breakdown of how much companies and employees gave to local community groups and charities in 2010.

The statistics for the 35 companies, part of the Business in the Community Ireland network, show that over €11m was donated in cash donations, €3.1m in in-kind donation and over €2.4m in fundraising by employees. Employees also volunteered nearly 140,000 hours to local groups and charities during the year.

Outside of Dublin, the counties ranked the highest for employee fundraising were Kildare, Limerick, Cork, Antrim and Louth, raising €151,000, €119,000, €87,000 and €77,000 and €73,000 respectively. Dublin had the most employee volunteer hours at 75,369, and Kildare was also strong with over 26,000 hours. Limerick and Meath followed with 6,200 and 5,900 hours respectively.

Tina Roche, chief executive of Business in the Community Ireland, said: “The London riots [last] month showed us just how important strong and healthy communities are to society. Companies can have a powerful impact on social issues at a local level and they gain from the experience by increasing staff morale, customer relations and brand reputation.”

Companies that participated include Abbott Ireland, AIB, Bank of Ireland, Boots Retail (Irl), Bord Gáis, Capita Life & Pensions (Services) Ireland, Coillte, Deloitte, Diageo Ireland, EBS, Elan, ESB, Glanbia, IBM, Intel, Irish Life & Permanent, Janssen Biologics (Ireland), Janssen Pharmaceutical, KPMG, Marks & Spencer, Microsoft, Musgrave Group, National Irish Bank, Nestlé Ireland, Oracle, PepsiCo, Pfizer, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Rabobank, Savills Ireland, Sodexo, State Street International Ireland, Telefónica O2 Ireland, Ulster Bank and Vodafone.