Around the world, Merck employees are actively engaged in their communities.
Employee giving benefits employees, their communities and Merck. For this reason, there are a number of programs through which employees can contribute to the communities in which they work and live.
To strengthen our culture of volunteerism, we established a Global Employee Volunteerism Policy, through which eligible Merck employees currently may be paid for up to 20 work hours per calendar year to volunteer. Since the policy’s implementation in 2009, more than 20,000 employees have completed approximately 210,000 hours of volunteer work.
365 Merck Days
Merck employees around the world are involved in volunteer efforts that improve their communities and enhance their neighbors’ well-being. In February 2010, we introduced the 365 Merck Days program to foster that giving spirit. This global volunteer program supports the efforts of our employees, by providing volunteer release time (time to volunteer during work hours) and a website with information on how employees can become involved. The site also enables employees to share their experiences, through videos and photos, with colleagues anywhere in the world.
Merck has numerous volunteer programs in place around the world that address a variety of societal challenges. Here is a sample of those programs:
Merck Community Action Day (Canada) Almost 90 Merck Canada employees volunteered for the first Merck Community Action Day in 2011, supporting 16 nonprofit organizations in Montreal and the West Island. Employees sorted food, accompanied people for shopping, served meals and cleaned apartments. The Merck Community Action Day is a new initiative, and Merck is considering extending it across Canada, for employees in all provinces.
Water Watch Society in Singapore In collaboration with Water Watch Society, Merck’s Singapore employees embarked on a clean-up of the Marina Barrage, a desalinated reservoir made up of Marina Bay and the Kallang River Basin that provides 10 percent of Singapore’s water needs. Volunteers rode bicycles, circled the reservoir in patrol boats, and walked along the river beds collecting litter and noting any sites that needed professional cleaning.
Build Smart, Breathe Easier (USA) Merck volunteers kicked off the Build Smart, Breathe Easier program on June 8, 2011, building one of four asthma-healthy homes with the help of Habitat for Humanity. In a program that will continue through December 2012, hundreds of Merck volunteers worked on these houses in Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. Build Smart, Breathe Easier is a national asthma-education program sponsored by Merck in partnership with the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, Habitat for Humanity and HGTV personality Carter Oosterhouse. It’s designed to highlight the importance of maintaining an asthma-healthy home and to disseminate information on ways to help manage the disease.
MSD Switzerland & MSD EEMEA More than 200 employees from the MSD sites in Switzerland and in the EEMEA region (Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa) participated in the Lucerne Marathon on October 30, 2011, to raise funds for two charities and enjoy a sporting event among friends within the company. MSD in Switzerland and in the EEMEA region agreed to donate money for every kilometer run by the MSD team to both the Chronic Disease Clinic of the St. Francis Designated District Hospital in Ifakara, Tanzania, and the "Kinder Jugend Familie" (child adult family) institute in Lucerne, Switzerland.
Team Volunteering (USA) Merck teams from Sales, Marketing, Finance, Research Manufacturing, Information Technology, Global Support Services, Legal and many other divisions and departments supported countless nonprofits and nongovernment organizations around the world. For example, members of the Global Franchise Planning & Support Group, USA, participated in a volunteer event with Junior Achievement and the St. Francis de Sales School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Junior Achievement is one of the largest U.S. organizations dedicated to empowering young people to own their economic futures by emphasizing the relevancy of education. After some training and other preparation, volunteers served as role models in classrooms (grades 2–5) of approximately 200 students. The group used curricula designed to help prepare the students for their roles as individuals, workers and consumers. Merck employees agreed that they were personally touched by the experience, and the teachers and students expressed their great appreciation for the volunteers.
Pro Bono Legal Program In this nationally recognized program, which began modestly in 1994, more than 100 Merck attorneys, paralegals and administrative associates provide pro bono legal services to residents of New Jersey and Pennsylvania who could not otherwise afford legal representation. Merck is currently handling pro bono cases with legal service partners throughout New Jersey and in southeast Pennsylvania in the areas of guardianship, landlord/tenant disputes, bankruptcy, family law, domestic violence, military veteran benefits, social security disability benefits and special education law. By the end of 2011, Merck’s Pro Bono Legal Program was supported by 172 participants who provided approximately 3,700 hours of pro bono legal services for the year.
Join My Village Introduced to Merck employees in January 2011, Join My Village is a “click-to-commit” social change initiative through which Merck employees can make charitable donations to help provide education and economic development opportunities for women and girls in Malawi, and, as of February 2012, in India as well. Merck is partnering with General Mills to donate $1. 5 million in 2012 to CARE—a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty through which Join My Village donations are made. To learn more about Join My Village, you can also visit their Facebook page.
Partnership for Giving (P4G) The Merck Partnership for Giving (P4G) is our year-round matching funds program that gives active U.S. and Puerto Rico–based Merck employees and retirees the opportunity to support health and human services agencies, accredited educational institutions, arts and culture, and animal welfare and environmental organizations of their choice. The Merck Company Foundation matches employee and retiree contributions of up to $30,000 a year.
Touched by an Agency To recognize and thank the many people and organizations that have made a difference in our own lives and the lives of our families, U.S.-based employees are invited each year to nominate nonprofit agencies to receive a $1,000 “thank you grant” through the Merck P4G program. Employees share their personal stories with these agencies on the P4G website.
Merck/MSD Blood Drives Merck runs blood drives at many of its sites around the world. In 2011, 65 employees in Egypt, for example, participated in a companywide blood drive.
