Kimberly-Clark Comes Together for a Successful United Way Campaign

Festivals, live and silent auctions, pie-throwing contests and magic shows aren’t just ways to have fun, they are activities that employees at each Kimberly-Clark location participate in to raise money for the United Way.

For the past 30 years, Kimberly-Clark has embraced the United Way on a corporate level and, more importantly, across the U.S. in its local mills and plants where employees join together annually to raise money for their local United Way chapters. This is an opportunity for employees to give back to the families in each community, as the money raised is used to assist local United Way-funded organizations. In the past 30 years, Kimberly-Clark has helped the communities in which it lives and works through tens of millions dollars in donations to United Way chapters across the country.

Kimberly-Clark kicked off its 2008 fund-raising campaign with a motivating boost when it won the Community Investment Summit Award from United Way of America for its 2007 campaign efforts. The award recognizes the creative, grassroots approach Kimberly-Clark and its employees take in fund raising, including educational activities, golf tournaments and book sales.

Each year, local campaign coordinators accept the exciting challenge of creating a successful new fund-raising program. To assist the 2008 coordinators, Kimberly-Clark’s communications team developed the “Cookin’ Up A Great United Way” campaign toolkit that includes everything needed to develop a successful fundraising effort. This toolkit has since received two awards from the Texas Public Relations Association.

Berkeley mill employees pose for pictures with the Kleenex NASCAR racing car.

“I am inspired each year by the effort Kimberly-Clark employees put into their local United Way campaigns,” said Tom Falk, chairman and CEO, Kimberly-Clark Corporation. “The company is built on the promise to give and take care of the families in our communities, and once again, our employees rallied to help others in need.”

During the 2008 fund-raising campaign, Kimberly-Clark employees donated $2.6 million, which was matched dollar-for-dollar by the Kimberly-Clark Foundation. In addition, plants and mills conducted fund-raising events that yielded another $375,000, bringing the grand total for United Way to more than $5.5 million.

Award-Winning Contributors

Mobile Mill
Mobile, Alabama
United Way campaign leaders kicked off their fund-raising drive this year by inviting representatives from local partner agencies supported by United Way funds to the mill to hand out information to employees. The mill also held a drawing for SEC football championship tickets for employees who donated to the United Way, an ideal incentive considering the popular University of Alabama football team was playing for the title. All of these activities helped the mill raise more than $156,000.

For its team effort, the K-C Mobile mill was given the United Way of Southwest Alabama’s top honor, the 2008 Spirit of the Gulf Coast Award. In addition, mill leadership also received the United Way of Southwest Alabama’s 2008 Red Leachman Community Service Award.

Lexington Mill
Lexington, North Carolina
The Kimberly-Clark Lexington mill won the United Way of North Carolina’s 2008 Spirit of North Carolina Award for Campaign Excellence for its fund-raising efforts. The award-winning program included a 54-team all-day golf tournament, book sale and TV raffle, all of which contributed to the Lexington mill raising $129,169. Lexington mill employees also worked on projects at Davidson County Cancer Services and Crisis Ministry in Lexington as part of United Way’s Week of Caring.

For more information on some of Kimberly-Clark’s exciting local United Way campaigns, click here.

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