Ford Motor Company Fund and Community Services

The goals of the Fund are the same as they were when Henry Ford II founded it 60 years ago: to support local and national programs that effect change in our communities and improve the quality of life. Investing in communities is more than the right thing to do; it’s also smart business. Our global Company is only as strong as the local communities in which our employees and customers live and work, so it is in our mutual interest that we work with communities to make meaningful contributions to their quality of life.

It is in that spirit that Ford Motor Company Fund and Community Services supports programs and initiatives that help build vibrant and sustainable communities. Recently, we expanded our “Operation Goodwill” program to partner with our dealers and a diverse range of nonprofit organizations to enhance quality of life. This program now operates in Chicago, Detroit, Miami, Louisville, Nashville, Puerto Rico, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego and across the Northwest U.S. Our efforts support some of the most vulnerable citizens in the U.S.

The following are other examples of some of our most significant or new programs.

• In 2009, we launched the Ford Mobile Food Pantries program to help social service organizations in southeast Michigan collect and distribute food to those in need. In the first year, we provided three Ford Transit Connect vans for food deliveries. We have since expanded the program significantly, having donated 21 vans for food collections and deliveries by the end of 2011. Overall in 2011, Ford contributed $221,000 to this program, enabling the Mobile Food Pantries to serve more than 1.1 million meals in southeast Michigan during the course of the year.
• For the 11th consecutive year, Ford Motor Company and Newman’s Own®, Inc. are partnering with Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger-relief organization, to provide refrigerated Ford trucks loaded with Newman’s Own food products to foodbanks across the U.S. This unique “Partnership for Hunger Relief” began when Paul Newman reached out to Bill Ford in an effort to improve the distribution of produce and other perishable food to those facing hunger in rural America. Today, a fleet of 104 refrigerated Ford trucks and vans now reaches into all 50 states. To date, our donated trucks have delivered more than 176 million meals to families across the country, particularly in hard-to-reach, underserved communities.
• In 2011, the Fund continued to support organizations and initiatives that preserve America’s culture heritage and diversity, including two Smithsonian traveling exhibits: Freedom’s Sisters, an exhibition that honors the legacy of 20 influential African-American women; and American Sabor, an exhibition that focuses on the musical contributions of Latino artists.
• Ford employees and Ford Motor Company Fund and Community Services are major supporters of the United Way in the U.S., giving nearly $8.1 million in 2011 to support numerous community-based social services organizations.
• Ford also has a long history of working with disabled American veterans. As a major contributor to the Jesse Brown Memorial Youth Scholarship Program, for example, Ford provides scholarships to students who volunteer at local Veteran’s Administration medical centers. For 17 years, Ford has also been a sponsor of the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic, which brings hundreds of disabled veterans to the mountains of Colorado to participate in adaptive sports, including skiing, snowmobiling, sled hockey and rock wall climbing. In 2011, Ford donated funds for Disabled American Veterans (DAV) to purchase nine new vehicles for its headquarters and the DAV Transportation Network, in addition to providing $25,000 to the DAV’s youth volunteer scholarship program.
• The Fund supports teen safe driving through its award-winning Ford Driving Skills for Life (FDSFL) program, a safe-driving curriculum that has trained hundreds of thousands of U.S. teenagers through web-based and in-person driving sessions since the program was launched 2003. Developed by Ford, the Governors Highway Safety Association and a panel of safety experts, the free program addresses the no. 1 killer of teens – traffic crashes. FDSFL is the nation’s most comprehensive driving skills program, with free professional driver instruction, a web-based curriculum, state grants and free materials. FDSFL launched a national high school tour in 2011, visiting 30 cities in 15 states. In 2008 the program was expanded into Asian markets, where it now trains newly licensed drivers in China, India, Taiwan, South Africa, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, as well as Puerto Rico. FDSFL programs are tailored in each of these markets to reflect the local driving environment and road conditions.
• The Ford Partnership for Advanced Studies uses an academically rigorous and interactive curriculum to provide high school students with 21st-century learning experiences to enhance real-world skills. Since its inception in 2004, more than 150,000 students in 27 states have participated in the program, which relies on collaboration among high schools, community organizations, higher education institutions, government entities and businesses. The program was honored with the National Governors Association’s first Public–Private Partnership Award for innovative educational programming, among other awards.
• The Henry Ford Learning Institute is a national nonprofit organization, which supports high schools that are focused on creativity and innovation, integrated with college-preparatory courses in math, science, social studies and language arts. The first such charter school – Henry Ford Academy (HFA) – was opened in 1997 in Dearborn, Michigan. Since then, three other HFA schools have opened in Detroit, Chicago and San Antonio, Texas.
• The Ford Driving Dreams Through Education Program, launched in 2010 in partnership with the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), aims to address the high school dropout rate among Hispanic students. Twenty LULAC councils are receiving support to implement local programs that help students stay in school.
• The Ford College Community Challenge invites more than 30 partner universities and colleges to develop student-led programs that tackle a specific community issue. The five winning projects each use a $50,000 Ford grant to build sustainable communities in an innovative way. Recent projects include the nation’s first conversion of a traditional school bus to a hydraulic hybrid vehicle that runs on recycled biofuel.
• Ford “Blue Oval” Scholarships are awarded to individual students through organizations such as the Hispanic College Fund, the American Indian College Fund, the United Negro College Fund, the Jesse Brown Memorial Youth Scholarship Program and the Society for Automotive Engineers Educational Foundation. In 2011, more than 1,000 scholarships were awarded, totaling $1.5 million.
• We are working with Project SNAP to thank members of the military for their service through Operation Grateful Nation. Operation Grateful Nation is a community-wide program taking place in Operation Goodwill cities across the country. The program provides 400 students in each city, along with families of veterans, the opportunity to create artwork and attach a message thanking members of the military for their service and sacrifice. Thousands of pieces of artwork will be collected from coast to coast to create a giant mosaic mural that will be installed in a prominent public location.
• Also in 2011, we launched Ford Community Corps, a new program in Michigan that we hope will be replicable elsewhere. We are working with four university partners – Wayne State University; the University of Detroit, Mercy; the University of Michigan, Dearborn; and Madonna University – to provide funding to match nonprofit needs with university resources. The program works with nonprofits to identify specific projects that students can complete, such as developing a business plan for a dental clinic or evaluating software to track fundraising efforts.

In addition to the above, Ford supports a wide variety of other organizations through direct corporate contributions and sponsorships. Highlights from 2011 include the following:

• For more than 20 years, Ford has been involved in helping find a cure for juvenile diabetes. See the Type 1 diabetes case study for more information.
• Ford has also been a long-time supporter in the fight against breast cancer. For 18 years, Ford has been a National Series Sponsor of the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure® series and has dedicated more than $115 million to the cause in donations and in-kind gifts. Ford’s commitment goes well beyond the October race; it lasts 365 days a year and focuses on raising awareness, support and donations for this cause, including customized apparel that is sold on fordcares.com. This specially designed clothing and accessory line, called “Warriors in Pink,” is dedicated to those fighting this disease, and 100 percent of net proceeds go to Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. Since 2006, we have sold more than $9.2 million of the Warriors in Pink products. In addition, more than 75,000 Ford employees and thousands of dealership employees are involved in races and supporting the cause in their local communities. 2011 was a significant year for the program, as we had the largest October ever in apparel sales/donations to the cause due to a partnership with actress Jennifer Aniston and the Lifetime Network.
• Ford volunteers raised $520,000 for the March of Dimes. Ford Vice President Jim Tetreault and UAW Vice President Jimmy Settles served as UAW/Ford sponsors for the 2011 March for Babies campaign. The combined efforts of the UAW/Ford teams exceeded the outstanding results from 2010. Over the past seven years, the UAW/Ford team has raised more than $2.4 million.
• Ford and the UAW continued our longstanding partnership with the American Red Cross to host approximately 210 blood drives at various office and plant locations across the country, collecting nearly 8,000 pints of blood in 2011.
• Ford volunteers raised more than $146,633 for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s Michigan Chapter in 2011.