Local engagements
At both the group and the local level, we strive to improve the environment in which we live and work.
Through our Z Zurich Foundation, we engage in long-term global partnerships with select non-profit organizations to bring about innovative and sustainable solutions to pressing global challenges in areas of mutual interest.
As a founding member of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Corporate Support Group, Zurich supports the ICRC in its mission to protect the lives and dignity of victims of war and internal violence, and to promote humanitarian law and principles. We engage in ongoing exchanges of information and expertise with the ICRC and other corporations in the Corporate Support Group.
Additionally, many Zurich offices make significant financial and in-kind contributions through their own community investment programs focused on the particular needs of their communities.
United Kingdom
Over the past 37 years, Zurich Community Trust has undertaken long-term transformational programs focused on key areas of need and has provided a framework for employees and financial advisors to support and participate in community involvement activities. Through the Zurich Cares employee involvement program, Zurich leverages time, money and skills from UK staff and involves them in grant making and volunteer programs to help disadvantaged people achieve an independent future. Each year, over 700 charities are supported, and the Trust works in partnership for 3-5 years with around 27 of those.
Please visit the Zurich Community Trust for a complete description of their programs.
North America
Zurich North America serves U.S. communities through sponsorships, employee fundraising and grants to non-profit organizations where employees volunteer regularly. Grants are made through corporate giving programs that match employee donations. The focus is to provide donations to organizations that enhance the lives of children, aid disaster relief efforts and promote insurance education. In 2009, employee and company giving amounted to over USD 1.6 million. Major gifts were given to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, American Red Cross and Boys Hope Girls Hope.
To further recognize company and employee interests, a substantial donation was made to the twelve core charity partners featured in the annual A Time for Giving campaign. The 2009-10 campaign engaged 35 offices in volunteer activities, educational workshops and fundraising for 12 charitable organizations. Employees, coupled with matching gifts from Zurich, donated USD 815,000 to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Make-A-Wish Foundation, American Red Cross, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Salvation Army, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, American Heart Association, Habitat for Humanity, EarthShare, American Cancer Society and the United Way.
Additional fundraisers were held throughout the year to support the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women Campaign, Jeans for Wishes program, Be a Hero for Babies Day and disaster relief response efforts.
Zurich’s U.S. employees are active participants in an array of volunteer opportunities:
- Mentoring students through the Junior Achievement and Big Brothers Big Sisters programs
- Assisting with Special Olympics events
- Preparing meal packages and comfort kits for Feed My Starving Children and the American Red Cross
- Assisting classrooms in the Gulf Coast by donating school supplies and bike racks
- Donating holiday gifts and certificates to more than 30 charities across the U.S.
- Building houses domestically and internationally for Habitat for Humanity
- Collecting clothes and toiletries for local shelters and welfare to work programs
- Walking and fundraising for the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, March of Dimes and The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure
- Planning and implementing an annual fun fair for children with special needs
Zurich North America September 11 KAMP Award Program
Zurich in North America honors the legacies of John Keohane, Peggy Alario, Kathleen Moran and Lud Picarro, four colleagues who died on September 11, with the KAMP Awards. The KAMP Awards serve as a tribute to their spirit of courage, service to the community, integrity and passion. Awards are presented annually to winners in New York.
Farmers
Farmers' community involvement mirrors its business approach to improve the communities where its customers, agents and employees live and work. Improving safety, expanding educational opportunities, enhancing health and human services, encouraging civic participation and supporting the arts and culture help drive Farmers' commitment.
Partners in Pride
Farmers prides itself on the thousands of agents, employees and customers who volunteer in their communities as members of the Farmers family. Whether contributing time, talents or donations, Farmers continues to strive to make a difference. The Partners in Pride volunteer program brings together the best of Farmers, including fundraising events for the March of Dimes, helping feed needy families during the holidays and serving local communities through the United Way campaign.
Matching Gifts Program
In support of excellence in education, Farmers supports employee generosity to schools through their Matching Gifts Program which matches individual employee contributions up to USD 500 to any qualifying U.S. educational institution.
United Way
Since 1928, thousands of Farmers employees, agents and district managers have raised millions of dollars and volunteered thousands of hours to support the United Way.
The United Way helps charities that are important to local communities, and supports great organizations such as the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Habitat for Humanity, Ronald McDonald House and the American Red Cross, just to name a few. This year Farmers will stand behind that support as never before by matching 50 percent of all employees’ donations.
March of Dimes and Be a Hero for Babies®
Now in its 22nd year, Farmers' partnership with the March of Dimes begins with the March for Babies events held throughout the United States. Across the country, Farmers people participate as sponsors, volunteers and walkers to raise the funds needed to make sure March of Dimes researchers, volunteers, educators, outreach workers and advocates can continue to work together to give all babies a fighting chance against prematurity, birth defects and low birth weight.
Farmers Insurance Open
In 2010, Farmers signed a four-year extension to continue as title sponsor of the PGA golf tournament at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, California. This sponsorship is important to the city of San Diego not only because of its boost to the local economy, but also thanks to the partnership with The Century Club, which donates USD 2 million to 200 charities each year as the result of this tournament.
In 2011, Farmers highlighted four new programs to demonstrate its commitment to community. Blessings in a Backpack helps feed needy children on the weekends. The First Tee/ProKids mission is to challenge underserved youth to excel in life by promoting character development, life-skills, and values through education and the game of golf.
Farmers partnership with March of Dimes was also visible with two programs, beginning with a military baby shower, called Operation Shower and ending with its continued support of Birdies for Babies® during tournament play, where Farmers donated USD 100 for every birdie and USD 1,000 for every eagle, ending the tournament with a USD 63,800 donation to the March of Dimes.
Farmers in the Classroom
At Farmers, we recognize that education is the best insurance for a successful future. For our country’s students to achieve greatness, they need easy access to relevant, informative and inspirational materials. That’s why we developed the Farmers Education programs — free award-winning programs aligned to state standards that provide elementary, middle and high school teachers with timely educational opportunities throughout the entire school year. Our programs are now enjoyed by more than 4 million students in over 200,000 classrooms nationwide. We invite teachers to explore our extensive library at www.GoFarmersEd.com and contact a Farmers agent to request materials at no cost.
In addition to providing our free education programs to help bolster schools, Farmers partners with separate educational organizations such as the American Association of School Administrators, National Council for the Social Studies and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History.
Please visit Farmers for more information.
Australia
Community Connections, Zurich Australia’s community program, supports and encourages employees to engage in local communities by donating time and money.
Employees get involved in a number of ways:
- Volunteering at an organization of their choice, supported by one day’s paid leave per year
- Donating money to the community directly from their pay, matched dollar-for-dollar by Zurich
- Participating in team volunteering days
Zurich partners with the United Way, a national non-profit organization which helps administer the program and facilitate Zurich’s engagement with a range of community organizations in the health and welfare sector.
Switzerland
Lucerne Festival
For more than 70 years the Lucerne Festival has been one of the world's most prominent classical music festivals. The festival features three unforgettable series of concerts – Lucerne Festival at Easter, in Summer and at the Piano. Zurich supports the Easter and Summer festivals.
Zurich Opera House
Zurich Opera House is one of the world’s most successful theatres, annually staging 300 opera and ballet performances, concerts and song recitals of the highest artistic quality with first-class artists and performers. Every year, Zurich supports a different premiere production at the Opera House.
Zurich vitaparcours - Zurich makes people move!
Zurich is financing 502 outdoor fitness clubs. Running tracks and stopover points where individuals can train are located throughout the Swiss forests. The Zurich vitaparcours is available to people free of charge around the clock and is now a permanent feature of sporting life in Switzerland.
Road safety - Zurich makes people drive safely!
Thanks to the financial support from Zurich Switzerland and the Z Zurich Foundation, the non-profit organization Road Cross trains teenagers and young adults in road safety at around 300 events per year. Young people's attention is drawn to dangers and possible preventive measures, and they also learn how to improve safe behavior.
Zurich Risk Management Dialogue - Zurich links generations!
Mankind always had to deal with opportunities and risks. Societies are developing and living conditions are changing, constantly resulting in new possibilities and vulnerabilities. At Zurich, we are used to dealing with such changes - after all, managing risks is our core business.
The “Zurich Risk Management Dialogue” provides the platform to discuss such challenges with different subject matter experts. While the first dialogue series was on the topic of “Solidarity between different generations,” the focus is now on “Climate Change,” which has become one of the most important challenges we have to overcome.
In addition to discussing risks, Zurich also wants to make a tangible contribution to spotlighting opportunities. To this end the Zurich Climate Prize has been established with financial support from the Z Zurich Foundation to award innovative and/or replicable projects that actively contribute to the reduction of CO2 emissions or are able to effect a positive change in behaviour. For more information and video on prize winners (in German), please visit www.zurich.ch/klimapreis.
Argentina
In the past ten years, Zurich Argentina has transitioned from a traditional philanthropy approach to community involvement to a social investment approach. Zurich and its employees support communities and non-profit organizations in Argentina in a number of areas.
- Sponsorship of “Fortaleciendo los valores de la democracia” (Fostering democracy), a program developed by Asociación Concienda, in association with the guidelines of the Center for Civic Eduction in the U.S. Through the program, secondary school teachers are trained to help students to detect community problems and to find ways to solve them with the participation of governmental authorities.
- Funding a grant for post-graduate studies for officials of non-profit organizations to improve the professional management of their organizations. Studies are undertaken at Universidad de San Andrés and include a program intended to furnish officials with management tools to ensure sustainable and professional performance.
- Through the Fundacion Cimientos, funding grants to keep secondary school students in school. This non-profit organization is dedicated to promoting equal education opportunities to children brought up in communities in need.
- Membership of the council of Fundación Impulsar, a non-profit organization that provides funding, mentoring and training to unemployed youths to promote entrepreneurship.
- Sponsorship of the program “Sharing our time” in the Argentine beach resorts. For three years in a row, Zurich has sponsored the program implemented by the non-profit Proyecto Padres (Parents’ Project) which supports parents in their responsibility to educate their children to be in a better position to face the challenge of being “better parents, better children, better citizens.” The program includes a cycle of lectures and recreational activities to be shared by the members of the family aimed at deepening the relationship between parents and children and fostering thinking about the social leadership of parenthood.
- Sponsorship of the “Clarín - Zurich Award in Education 2009 - 2010” for two consecutive editions. On this occasion, the reward was for the best pedagogical project aimed at enhancing the teaching of the Spanish language in high school. The best project will be selected by a jury of renowned personalities. The winner will receive USD 33,000, and the second and third place winners will receive USD 8,000.
VoluntarioZ corporate volunteering program
Through VoluntarioZ, Zurich fosters employees’ community involvement by providing funding, communication tools, time, acknowledgement, training and the full commitment of management. VoluntarioZ develops community programs in the areas of education, environment, culture and building of social capital and is acknowledged as a benchmark in the Argentine corporate environment. Through the help of over 90 volunteers (18 percent of Zurich Argentina’s payroll) engaged in five ongoing volunteer programs, over 1,000 people benefit from VoluntarioZ.
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Asia Pacific
Community investment programs in Asia Pasific focus on helping children in the community. For example:
- Organizing office donation boxes and a Zurich Charity Bowling Competition in support of Children's Cancer Foundation to help young patients and their families in their fight against childhood cancer. In 2010, 43 teams and their supporters made up of Zurich employees, agents, brokers, business partners and their families joined the event and raised HKD 100,000.
- Raising money for Playright Children's Play Association to extend hospital play service to take the edge off the fear and pain experienced by children in hospitals
- Sponsorship of the English School Foundation's Primary Choral Concert
- Visiting an orphanage during Christmas time to show care and love to orphans by bringing food, toys and other tools for living and learning
- Organizing a Christmas party for underprivileged children, together with St. James Settlement, and delivering Christmas presents donated by employees
- Region-wide (including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and Indonesia) fundraising campaign for the disaster relief efforts to help the victims in Indonesia who suffered from several natural disasters including Merapi volcano eruption, tsunami in Mentawai (Sumatra), and flooding in Wasior (Papua).
- Sponsoring a Christmas tree for the Christmas Fundraising Campaign 2010 organized by Hong Kong Blood Cancer Foundation and Harbour City. This is our third consecutive year of sponsorship to extend our care to the less fortunate.
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