2018-Jan-16

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Food for Thought

Preheat the oven, set a timer for one year.

Step 1: Prepare the filling. Add in your list of ingredients:

$18.5 million
416,000 hours
3,700 organizations
1 global community

Step 2: Mix all the ingredients together, and let it bake.

Step 3: Enjoy the results.

What did your recipe yield? One year of feeding the hungry. One year of supporting disaster relief. One year of mentoring students. One year of cleaner, smarter, supported communities.

Employees in Durham participate in a Habitat for Humanity build.

That’s what we did in one year. In 2017, employees donated over $9 million to causes we care about. With Cisco donation and volunteer matching dollars, we raised over $18.5 million. Every dollar we raised made a difference. We gave over 416,000 hours of our time to worthy causes. That’s over 47 years worth of our volunteer hours, in service of our global and local partners and communities. We couldn’t be prouder of the impact we made in just one year.

It’s More than a Number

Buster the kitten was adopted at a volunteer event during Global Service Month.

It’s not about the numbers. It’s about the families we helped. The lives we touched through our time, resources and dollars. Our recipe for giving helped Paula get the Alzheimer’s care she needs. It fed Sandeep daily at his school in Bangalore. It packed care kits for hurricane victims. It helped Jonathon’s family obtain food and power in Puerto Rico. Our work inspired young students like Willa, who attended Girls Power Tech, to study STEM. And it helped thousands of animals find loving homes, including Buster, who found his family at a Cisco volunteer event. This is how our gifts are still giving. If you ask us, it was worth every hour. Every penny. And we’d do it all over again.

You Can Help All Year

A New Year’s resolution you can keep: find a way to give. Each year half of us volunteer our time or money. Our neighbors and communities need help around the clock, 24x7. Keep the momentum going all year. Here’s how:

• Give and get matched. Cisco will match $10,000 all year for approved organizations.
• Use your Time2Give (volunteer time off) benefit to support organizations of your choice.
• Use Bright Funds to find volunteer opportunities both within Cisco and your local community.
• Tell your coworkers your giving story! Inspire your colleagues to get involved and to give back.

Need some inspiration to get started? Check out how we helped with disaster relief efforts globally in 2017. Imagine what we can accomplish in 2018 with your help!

We can’t wait to hear about how you’ll give back. Take a minute and tell us in the comments below.

Helpful Links

• Learn about how you can participate in giving at Cisco Citizen
• Bright Funds giving platform
• Time2Give
• A Recipe for Giving Back

Do you have a personal experiences story to tell? Share with the #WeAreCisco

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