Actions not words: Ten years of Global Volunteer Day - Deutsche Post DHL Group employees support local charitable projects

• After the first Volunteer Day was held in the Asia Pacific region in 2008, Global Volunteer Day (#globalvolunteerday) was established worldwide in 2011.
• In 2017 alone, over 100,000 employees around the world gave approx. 400,000 hours of their time to nearly 3,000 social and environmental projects.

 From September 17 to September 30, Deutsche Post DHL Group will call on employees worldwide to participate in the Group’s tenth Global Volunteer Day (GVD). During this two-week period, Group employees are encouraged to actively support charitable projects in their home regions. Many teams make use of this opportunity to help those in need, such as young people in socially disadvantaged situations. Other volunteer initiatives include building accommodation for those without a home, taking care of refugee children and supporting environmental projects. Last year alone, over 100,000 employees around the world gave approx. 400,000 hours of their time to nearly 3,000 such projects. In doing so, GVD makes a real and lasting contribution - one that benefits employees and society alike.

“Thanks to the long-term commitment of our employees and the support of the management, Global Volunteer Day has grown over the last several years into a real success story,” explains Christof Ehrhart, Executive Vice President of Corporate Communications and Responsibility at Deutsche Post DHL Group. Employees in Asia celebrated the first Global Volunteer Day in 2008; just three years later Deutsche Post DHL Group made it into a global event and then in 2013 expanded its scope to include year-round volunteer projects. “Social and environmental engagement is integral to our corporate strategy, and we’re very proud that employee volunteering - along with the diversity of the projects themselves - has grown so steadily over the last several years.”

Employees are free to choose the local projects they support, although there is a certain focus on areas such as education and employability for young people or environmental protection - areas aligned with company programs such as GoTeach, GoHelp or GoGreen. “Many employees want to contribute to our target of planting one million trees a year and are very enthusiastic about GVD’s tree-planting projects,” reports Ehrhart. “But a great many also get involved with refugee aid projects to help them with integrate socially, find direction professionally as they prepare to enter the workforce.”

In many cases, Group employees contribute their skills and talents and maintain relationships to their charitable projects and institutions over the long term. Several of the projects also receive financial support from the Group’s Living Responsibility Fund, to which employees can apply on behalf of their projects.