Community

Employee Involvement
 
 
 
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  EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT
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Our employees donate money and volunteer their time to support their local communities. We have a number of programs in the U.S. to reward their efforts and generosity. These include our Matching Gifts program, through which $1.4 million of employee donations to U.S. non-profit organizations were matched dollar for dollar in 2008.

Our Community Partners program provides $500 grants to non-profit organizations where employees and their spouses or domestic partners volunteer more than 30 hours per year. In 2008, we donated more than $1 million to this program. Our employees volunteered more than 69,000 hours of their time to a variety of non-profit organizations through this program.

In the U.S., employees can also support the United Way through payroll giving, a voluntary program where donations to the United Way are deducted directly from participating employees’ salaries. We match employee gifts to United Way dollar for dollar.

The United Way is a network of nearly 1,300 local organizations trying to mobilize the caring power of communities. For decades, K-C and our employees have donated time and money to United Way organizations across the U.S. K-C is one of around 130 companies nationwide that make up the United Way’s National Corporate Leadership group – companies that conduct campaigns in all their facilities across the U.S. and who raise $1 million or more.

In 2008, K-C employees raised over $2.6 million (matched dollar for dollar by K-C) for their local United Ways through workplace campaigns. Employees raised another $375,000 through fundraising events at their locations. Fifty six percent of our employees participated, compared with an industry average (according to United Way) of 43 percent. Over the past decade, K-C and its employees have contributed more than $60 million to United Ways across the U.S.

Many of our executives also contribute to the community by serving on the boards of community and charitable organizations, for example:

  • Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Tom Falk serves on the boards of the University of Wisconsin Foundation, Boys & Girls Club of America, and Catalyst.
  • Group President, Developing and Emerging Markets, Bob Black volunteers at the Park Cities Family YMCA in Dallas, Texas.
  • Group President, North Atlantic Consumer Products, Robert Abernathy serves on the Emory University Goizueta Business School Advisory Board in Georgia and the University of Alabama Arts and Sciences Advisory Board. He also serves on the boards of Texas Health Resources and the Fox Valley Performing Arts Center in Appleton, Wisconsin.
  • President of Kimberly-Clark Health Care, Joanne Bauer, serves on the board of MedShare International, which provides surplus medical supplies and equipment to hospitals in the developing world.
  • Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Liz Gottung serves on the boards of the North Fulton Child Development Association in Georgia and the American Heart Association based in Dallas, Texas. She also serves on the University of Georgia Terry College Dean’s Advisory Council.
  • Senior VP and Chief Marketing Officer, Tony Palmer, serves on the Board of Directors of the Ad Council and is a member of the Ad Council’s North Texas Leadership Committee, which is a subset of the National Board of Advertising Council.

China

K-C China continues to sponsor the New Day Foster Home, an orphanage for handicapped children located in southeast Beijing. Since 2003, K-C China and its employees have supported the home through corporate funding, product donation and employee volunteers. Many K-C employees volunteer to visit and play with the kids during weekends and holidays. We also invite the children to public K-C events such as the Huggies Baby Concert and Kids’ Nutrition Week to help them to get to know the outside world and have fun.

South Africa

Employees of K-C South Africa volunteer their personal time to several local charities. These include the Chance Children’s Home which cares for HIV-infected babies and children in Springs, Gauteng, where K-CSA’s largest mill is located. Employees use their expertise to help manage the day-to-day activities of the home. The Beautiful Gate Children’s Home in Capetown also cares for HIV-infected children, and our employees are involved in regular activities and events there.

Thailand

K-C Thailand has joined forces with the Thailand Environment Institute to help protect and enhance the fragile and rapidly disappearing mangrove forests in Chonburi, Thailand.

Around 130 K-C Thailand employees volunteered their time and spent a weekend planting mangrove trees and releasing 50,000 blue crabs and various types of fish into the ocean. The mangrove trees create a habitat for marine life and protect the shoreline from erosion and storm surges.

Russia

In 2008, K-C Eastern Europe (K-CEE) developed two projects to support children and mothers in Russia. Through a partnership with Volunteers to Help Children (VOTC), K-CEE has provided products to over 50 orphanages and hospitals in Central Russia. These included Huggies diapers valued around $100,000.

K-CEE also worked closely with the Stupino Central Clinical Hospital maternity department to create the first hospital-based Mother’s Room in Russia, which opened in December 2008. The Mother’s Room enables expectant and new mothers to access online advice and resources in a relaxing setting. The K-CEE ‘Our mommies’ web portal provides members with online advice from gynecologists and pediatricians, as well as legal resources and forums to share their experience with other parents.


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