Community Engagement
Ball has facilities in 10 countries across the globe. We strive to enrich the communities in which we work beyond traditional economic investments such as jobs, benefits and paying local taxes. An important part of our cultural values is to be a good neighbor and corporate citizen in every community where we operate. Our employees engage in their local communities by volunteering for numerous organizations and causes, and by using our company’s employee matching gift program to increase the impact of their financial gifts to nonprofits and higher educational institutions. From time to time, our company supports volunteer activities by donating company resources.
Our corporate charitable giving supports organizations that solve problems central to our company values and business strategy. Requests for charitable contributions from our packaging and aerospace business in the U.S. should be directed through the Ball Foundation.
Ball has a long history of supporting charitable organizations in our communities. The five Ball brothers who founded our company in 1880 are remembered not only for their business prowess but also for their charitable activities. They were great community benefactors; in 1922 alone, according to that year’s New York Times, the brothers donated $1,000,000 to charity, a remarkable sum for the time.
Today, as our company continues to grow, we believe it is important to take a strategic approach to our charitable giving and focus on supporting organizations that solve problems central to our company values and business strategy. In 2010, we formed the Ball Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, private Foundation through which Ball now directs the majority of its corporate giving for our packaging and aerospace businesses in the U.S. The creation of the Ball Foundation is a key proof point to our commitment to sustainability, particularly the social aspect of the triple bottom line.
Our employees also have the opportunity to play a strong role in directing our corporate giving. In the U.S., we match employee contributions to higher education institutions and charitable organizations through our matching gifts program. The program is a dollar-for-dollar match for employee gifts to eligible colleges, universities or other higher learning institutions, up to $5,000 per employee, per year. Employee gifts to qualifying nonprofit organizations are matched dollar-for-dollar, up to $1,500 per employee, per year.
We also provide a dollar-for-dollar match for employee contributions to our annual Colorado United Way campaign which includes employees at our aerospace, packaging, corporate headquarters and Golden manufacturing facilities. In 2011 this campaign raised nearly $1,000,000, with the Ball match, for the United Way.
Because the matching gifts program has been a great success in the U.S., we launched a similar program in Europe in early 2010. Ball matches donations to charitable organizations made by European employees for amounts between €30 and €1,000.
Each Ball manufacturing plant in North America, Europe and Asia budgets money every year for targeted donations to charitable organizations within local communities. Activities are related to the company’s core values and are tied to the Ball Foundation’s focus areas of education, recycling and community engagement.
In North America, our plants supported a variety of organizations; from food banks and schools to the United Way. Our European plants supported a number of charities including the Red Cross, fire brigades and schools. In China, Ball responded when an earthquake in the province of Szechuan caused widespread casualties and damage in 2008. The business donated $15,000 to relief efforts in the distressed areas. Ball Aerospace employees have an Education Public Outreach program, which contributes funds to schools and non-profits that support science, technology, engineering and math.
In 2011, Ball and its employees around the world contributed more than $4 million to our communities through our corporate giving and matching gift programs.
► See Ball Foundation for more information.
Ball employees volunteer thousands of hours of their personal time to their communities. For example, in Colorado, where Ball employs more than 3,000 people, an employee volunteer task force called BEACON (Ball Employee Action & Community Outreach Network) coordinates volunteer activities throughout the year. Those activities in 2011 included repairing several Denver area homes as part of a national Rebuilding Together event, monthly staffing and help at a local food bank and cleaning up open space land.
Ball helps local organizations such as Junior Achievement in classrooms and with in-kind contributions and resources. A group of employees participated in Junior Achievement’s annual fundraising Bowl-A-Thon, which raised $24,000 for the charity in 2011.
Some of our facilities partner with local schools to educate children about the importance of recycling and how cans are made. Since 2005, Ball’s Conroe, Texas, plant has hosted school field trips for two schools in the area. The students tour the plant, see how cans are made and learn about recycling. The plant provides a can recycling program for the intermediate school and donates the proceeds to the school Parent Teacher Organization (PTO). In 2009, 3,845 pounds of aluminum were recycled, raising $2,832 for the PTO.
In 2010, Ball Aerospace employees volunteered close to 5,000 hours to non-profits supporting science, technology, engineering and math activities as part of their Education Public Outreach programs. Other volunteer groups support events like United Way’s Day of Caring, Special Olympics Summer Games and a local Science Saturday event to educate children about the Hubble and Kepler space missions.
In our Shenzhen, China plant, students from more than 30 primary schools visited the plant for a tour and educational presentation on can manufacturing and the benefits and value of recycling.
