Community Outreach

COMMUNITY OUTREACH
GRI EC10, SOC 1

The World Bank is an active citizen in the communities in which we live and work. Staff members donate both their time and their money to local and international organizations in Washington, DC, and abroad.

Disaster Relief

During fiscal years 2005 and 2006 natural disasters killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions, leaving them without food, shelter, or resources. Bank staff often mobilize to respond to natural disasters around the world by setting up donation tables at the various cafeterias. During 2005, funds were raised for several international relief campaigns and for victims of Hurricane Katrina in the United States. Funds raised through these donation drives are provided to international organizations such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) directly involved in the disaster relief operations.

Worldwide, our staff gives back to their communities through volunteering their time, money, and materials. In the Chennai office, for example, staff donate significant amounts of money, books, clothes, blankets, medicines, and food to service organizations in the city. After the December 26, 2004, tsunami, volunteers from the Chennai staff went to the affected areas in Tamil Nadu to construct houses and shelters for displaced people. Experts from other World Bank offices also traveled to the affected areas around the Indian Ocean, volunteering their time to find solutions to critical issues such as health care, waste removal, and reconstruction.

In November 2005, World Bank employees helped build houses with Habitat for Humanity on the national mall in Washington, DC. Habitat co-sponsored the construction of 51 house frames, one for each state plus one for the District of Columbia, between November 10th and 18th. The frames were sent to the southern United States to provide homes for families displaced by the Gulf hurricanes of 2005.

The Bank continues its Volunteer Day policy, which allows staff to take administrative leave one day a year to offer their time to a charity. Following Hurricane Katrina, President Wolfowitz extended this policy to an extra four days of administrative leave to work with charities involved in the relief effort. Many Bank staff took advantage of this opportunity.

Dollars for Doers

While Bank staff provide more than 10,000 hours of community service in the Washington metro area on an annual basis, our goal is to increase the number of Bank staff serving on Boards of nonprofit organizations and to provide support for all volunteer activities. To help drive this effort, we increased our budget for Dollars for Doers – which awards $500 grants to nonprofits that staff and retirees volunteer for regularly – and we have worked closely with numerous Bank departments wishing to undertake community service projects as a team. Last year, the program worked closely with numerous Bank departments wishing to undertake community service projects and integrating team-building activities with these projects.

WB Community Connections Fund

Community Connections is a nonprofit organization set up by the World Bank in order to make staff workplace giving more effective and to leverage existing resources. We support an annual campaign that has 193 of the best known Washington-based charities and NGOs such as Bethany House, DC Central Kitchen, Habitat for Humanity, and Whitman-Walker Clinic. In 2005, more than $1.5 million was donated by staff through the Community Connections Fund. In 2005 and 2006 staff donated more than $2 million with close to a million dollars in corporate matching funds also donated.

An additional $11,000 in spare change was collected from cash registers in 2006 at World Bank Group coffee bars and cafeterias in Washington. This money was donated to five local charities that focus on delivering meals to those who are in need.

Education

Our high school internship program serves as a model in the Washington, DC, community. In 2005 we hired 22 students and 21 students in 2006 from three local public schools to work for the summer. The interns are paid a salary and are also provided paid training once a week. The program has also included homeless students for whom this experience has often proved to be an important self-affirming opportunity. This program was recently expanded to include yearlong internships for several students.

The Bank also supports DC Scores – a program that works in partnership with businesses and law firms to create opportunities for poor children through a grant that will allow them to participate in sports, literacy training, and civic service. Last year, nearly a third of the students in DC Scores improved their reading and writing skills by one whole grade level.

In May 2006 our Community Outreach program announced a $400,000 grant to support training for 100 Washington, DC, public school teachers to work toward National Board Certification, a program that promotes high standards for professional performance. The teachers will strengthen their credentials and the result will be a better education for the children in the community.

Another grant was designated for the DC Creative Writing Workshop, a nonprofit organization that has been working east of the Anacostia River since 2000. The grant will support an in-class and after-school literary arts program for 400 students who are at high risk for academic failure, dropping out of school, exposure to criminal behavior, and depression. The program gives students an opportunity to avoid these risks and acquire a love of learning.

Grants

The World Bank’s program of small grants, led by a Community Outreach Grants Committee, is foremost in our workplace-giving efforts. The Committee consists of Bank staff active in the local community and non-Bank Committee members selected from other grantmakers in the region for example, the Community Foundation of the National Capital Region. The committee is responsible for reviewing and selecting grantees on an annual basis.

The Grants Program provided small-sized grants to nonprofits throughout the Washington metropolitan area. In 2006, community grants totaled $970,000 and supported over 40 local charities undertaking the following activities: education programs in the District of Columbia’s public schools, after school tutoring, renovating low-income housing, HIV/AIDS prevention, skills training for unemployed workers, distribution of meals to street residents, Latino youth support, and prenatal and well-baby care.