Our Culture 6 MIN Read
GDIT Cares: A Year in Review
December 30th, 2021
More than a corporate philanthropy program, GDIT Cares was designed to create opportunities for our employees to help others and to create incentives for doing so. The program is a demonstration of our commitment to being an exemplary corporate citizen and an extension of our “art of the possible” philosophy – because it reimagines what corporate giving can and should look like.
We are especially proud of all the ways our employees gave back this year – even as they continued to navigate the coronavirus pandemic and all of its challenges. In total, our employees performed more than 30,600 hours of service in 2021. Incredible.
Here are a few highlights from the year.
Dollars for Doers Program
When an employee, or group of employees, volunteers a minimum of 15 hours within the program year for an eligible non-profit organization, “Dollars for Doers” provides a monetary donation to the organization. The program allows GDIT to give to a diverse array of charitable organizations outside of our core partners and support causes. In 2021, we donated to 139 organizations through Dollars for Doers, including:
- Team Rubicon (Hawaii)
- International Dark Sky Association (California)
- Building Bridges Across the River (Washington, D.C.)
- Civil Air Patrol (California, Connecticut, North Carolina)
- Mental Health America of Fredericksburg (Maryland)
- Marshall Township Volunteer Fire Department (Indiana)
“THANK YOU! It is so awesome to work for a company that is just as passionate about giving to incredible organizations as we are. You all rock!”
Volunteer Recognition Program
The GDIT Cares Volunteer Recognition Program highlights employees for the amazing ways they are making an impact in the communities in which they live, work and play. Every month throughout the year, we showcase one employee as our Volunteer of the Month. On an annual basis, we recognize employees who have logged 100+ hours of volunteerism in the calendar year, along with four employees who logged 250+ hours of volunteerism. The latter are chosen via a blind survey by business leaders. This year, we recognized 12 exceptional and impactful GDIT volunteers, along with announcing our four 2020 Volunteers of the Year.
Back to School Supply Drive
Every year, as students prepared for back-to-school season, GDIT partners with Title I schools and organizations that support low-income or underserved communities. Together, we hold a school supply drive, but this year our support looked a little different. We utilized a hybrid support model that blended in-person activities with an online digital component. This meant we could maintain our support for these partners and expand employee engagement to include remote employees. On-site collections were available for employees reporting to a GDIT site. And the model worked! In total, we collected more than 18,000 school supplies across 23 locations and distributed them to 26 schools and organizations.
“Thank you for choosing Southwestern Elementary as one of your community partners. On behalf of our entire school family, thank you for your donations to our scholars. Your contributions of school supply kits provided the means for students to start the year with all of the essential tools. We truly appreciate your support.”
Holiday Giving Campaign
This season, our Employee Resource Groups partnered with organizations that support military families, veterans, underserved children and their local communities. In total, employees at 25 GDIT locations in 17 states and supported 20 community partners. Together, we collected 5,300+ needed items and distributed them to more than 3,900 families and we secured enough food donations to supply more than 20,600 meals.
“We received the coats and hygiene items yesterday! This is perfect timing as we are distributing coats next couple of days before the holidays. Thanks for your continued support to Little Bit Foundation, we could not do what we do without help from you and the community.”
STEM Education
As part of our continuing commitment to increasing our funding and volunteerism activity in STEM education in underserved communities, this year we expanded our reach with two new programs, allowing us to engage more than 100 employee volunteers and reach 90+ students. We also continued our support of Girls Who Code (GWC), sponsoring a GWC’s Summer Immersion Program (SIP). As part of this support, we developed programming for a two-week series of engagement sessions, mentoring workshops and activities including a social engineering scavenger hunt and talks titled “Managing Your Social Media Presence” and “Are You LinkedIn or Linked Out?”. Additionally, our annual Women + Tech event added a Bot-a-Thon Challenge to the program, hosted by GDIT with partners from Deloitte, UiPath and STEM for Her. This program engaged young women in their junior and senior year of high school to learn about Robotics Process Automation (RPA) and used those new RPA skills to solve a problem related to Humanitarianism, Cyber Threats, and Mental Health.
Throughout 2021, GDIT employees gave generously of their time, their dollars, their expertise and their compassion. We look forward to 2022 and to the continued opportunity in front of us to use our collective power to make a difference in the communities where we live, work and serve. GDIT Cares is one way we can do that. We are grateful to every employee who got involved this year and we invite anyone who wants to be involved next year to join us.
Learn more about how you can participate in GDIT Cares programs.
