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Corporate Citizenship Report (PDF - 5 MB)

Cisco and Employees

Employee Volunteerism/Giving

One of the core values at Cisco is empowering people to empower themselves. It serves as the basis of how Cisco is organized, for both our corporate structure and our corporate culture. We have learned that one important component of employee satisfaction is the feeling on the part of employees that their company is invested in their communities, and supportive of the lives of community members outside the office.

To this end, Cisco provides a variety of opportunities for employees to build leadership skills as well as enhance the communities in which they work and live, through involvement in a broad range of volunteer opportunities and charitable organizations.

We promote a culture of charitable giving and connect Cisco employees, managers, and executives to nonprofit organizations serving the communities in which we live. In addition, Cisco donates our best-in-class networking equipment to those nonprofit organizations that best put it to work for our communities.

For more information see the Cisco and Society and Employee Volunteering sections.


Case Study: Canada Children's Alliance

More than 170,000 children's lives across Canada are enriched by the work of the Big Brothers/Big Sisters and Boys and Girls Clubs. Cisco Canada recently brought these two organizations together to form the Cisco Canada Children's Alliance (CCA). The Cisco CCA is a long-term, three-way partnership to bring positive change to more than 800 communities.

Cisco's largest contribution will be a state-of-the-art IP Communications network that facilitates online collaboration and e-learning capabilities for both organizations across Canada. This highly secure IP network will allow staff and volunteers to receive the same quality of training, regardless of where they're located.

The Cisco IP network will improve staff and volunteer training in areas that include best practices and child safety, fundraising, and board member and volunteer recruitment. Increased productivity in these areas will ultimately allow the organizations to provide services for more Canadian children.

Currently the sites have a range of technical capabilities, which adds to each organization's challenge. "Cisco employees may help implement technology at local sites that don't have a technical staff person, or they could be working with a social worker or parent volunteer," said Harry McAvoy, vice president of advancement for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada. "Making training easy to use and more accessible to the staff and volunteers will improve the children's safety and their overall experience at all of our locations."

Cisco Chairman of the Board John Morgridge helped launch Cisco CCA in November 2004. As part of Cisco's 20th Anniversary Day of Service campaign, Canadian employees were encouraged to volunteer eight hours of their time to provide ongoing support for programs, events, and activities in local communities.

One of the core values at Cisco is empowering people to empower themselves. It serves as the basis of how Cisco is organized, for both our corporate structure and our corporate culture.