Ford Volunteer Corps

In addition to the financial contributions made by Ford and Ford Motor Company Fund to hundreds of organizations globally in 2007, thousands of Ford employees and retirees volunteered to help build stronger communities around the world.

Volunteerism has been an integral part of Ford Motor Company since its creation in 1903. The company's many volunteer efforts were unified in 2005 when Bill Ford, then chairman and CEO, founded the Ford Volunteer Corps. Ford volunteers immediately responded to the tsunami that devastated Southeast Asia and to the two hurricanes that hit the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The Ford Volunteer Corps comprises salaried employees and retirees across six continents who work to strengthen their communities. Ford Motor Company offers its U.S. salaried employees two work days per year to volunteer in the community. Employees form MODEL Teams and volunteer to help nonprofit organizations. Last year, Ford volunteers contributed more than 86,000 hours of volunteer time to their communities. It would take one Ford employee 42 years of full-time employment to accomplish what the Ford volunteers achieved in one year. Similar Ford volunteer efforts are replicated on the six continents where Ford Motor employees live and work. New software, recently launched by the Ford Volunteer Corps, will help meet the needs of nonprofits across the United States and Canada.

In 2007, Ford held its second annual Global Week of Caring, a week-long series of volunteer events around the world, coordinated by the Ford Volunteer Corps. During one week in early September, about 14,000 Ford employees from six continents donated more than 34,000 hours of their time to approximately 210 projects. This was a dramatic increase from the inaugural 2006 event that attracted 3,000 volunteers.

During the 2007 Global Week of Caring, participants built homes in the U.S., Canada and Thailand; renovated orphanages and schools; collected food and clothing for earthquake survivors in Peru; donated new wheelchairs to the elderly; contributed new mattresses and bedding for needy children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic in Africa; entertained and helped educate thousands of children in schools, orphanages and hospitals; and delivered medical and dental care to isolated villages, to name just some of the efforts.