Comcast NBCUniversal Named One Of The Most Community-Minded Companies In America

For the third consecutive time, Comcast NBCUniversal was recognized today as one of the most community-minded companies in the nation as part of the Civic 50, an initiative of Points of Light that sets the standard for corporate civic engagement.

This year, honorees were selected based on four dimensions of their U.S. community engagement programs, including investment, integration, institutionalization, and impact.

Comcast NBCUniversal uses its global media and technology assets to help connect and strengthen local communities, with a particular focus on programs supporting digital literacy, encouraging community service, and building tomorrow’s leaders. In 2015, Comcast NBCUniversal invested more than $521 million in cash and in-kind donations to local and national nonprofit organizations that share the company’s commitment to improving communities and enriching lives. Since 2001, Comcast’s overall giving has exceeded $4 billion in cash and in-kind contributions to support nonprofit organizations and other charitable partners across the country.

"It is such an honor to achieve this esteemed recognition of being named among the Civic 50," said Dalila Wilson-Scott, Senior Vice President of Community Investment for Comcast NBCUniversal, and President of the Comcast Foundation. "Using the reach of our technology and media platforms, and by partnering with world-class non-profit organizations, we are able to reach people in meaningful ways to help improve our communities."

"Since 2012, we have seen a notable shift in the results from the survey in a direction that speaks to the commitment of American companies to connect values of  community service and civic engagement to the culture and operating practices of their business," said Jennifer Lawson, Executive Director of the Corporate Institute at Points of Light.

Comcast NBCUniversal partners with a wide range of established national and community organizations, leveraging their local expertise to deliver maximum impact to our local communities. The company’s national partners include City Year, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, the National Urban League, National Council of La Raza, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, and Easter Seals. Comcast NBCUniversal also partners with Red Nose Day and Global Citizen, organizations aiming to end extreme poverty globally and in the United States. 

Signature company initiatives include Internet Essentials, with a focus on closing the digital divide, and Comcast Cares Day, the country’s largest single-day corporate volunteer effort.

Internet Essentials is the nation’s largest and most comprehensive broadband adoption program. Since 2011, the program has connected 2.4 million low-income Americans, or more than 600,000 families, to the power of the Internet at home, most for the first time. In 2015 and 2016, three new pilot programs were announced that expanded eligibility of Internet Essentials to new populations in select cities, including residents living in public housing, low-income senior citizens, and low-income community college students.

Comcast Cares Day is Comcast NBCUniversal’s companywide day of service and is the culmination of the company’s year-round commitment to volunteerism. Employees, their families and friends volunteer in their local communities alongside nonprofit partners. The 15th Comcast Cares Day was held this past April with a record 108,000 volunteers working at 930 project sites across 21 countries. Together, volunteers contributed more than 600,000 hours of service. Since the first Comcast Cares Day was held in 2001, more than 800,000 volunteers have participated at more than 7,700 projects.

The Points of Light Civic 50 initiative creates a roadmap for companies seeking to best use their time, talent, and resources to improve the quality of life in the communities where they do business. This year’s applicants were evaluated and accrued points based on several criteria, including the quantity and impact of financial and human resources applied to civic improvement; whether internal and external resources are activated to maximize community impact; how a company’s community engagement activities support its business interests; how broadly community engagement is supported and institutionalized within a company’s policies, systems and incentives; and how a company measures the social and business value of its community engagement programs.

The Civic 50 survey was developed in partnership with a high-profile working group of researchers and industry thought leaders. Dozens of corporate advisors provided strategic guidance on the program’s objectives, including defining indicators, developing methodology, and identifying partners and participants. As a result of this collaborative process, the initiative reflects leading insight and thinking about how corporations can and should connect with communities in a twenty-first century economy. 

The survey was administered by True Impact, a company specializing in helping organizations maximize and measure their social and business value. The survey instrument consists of quantitative and multiple-choice questions that inform the Civic 50 scoring process. The Civic 50 is the only survey and ranking system that exclusively measures corporate involvement in communities.

To learn more about the Civic 50, to see a full list of the winners, and to access the full report, The 2016 Civic 50: Turning Good Intentions into Sound Business Practices, which presents the highlights, trends, benchmarking data and best practices from the 2016 Civic 50, please visit www.Civic50.org.