Northeast Delta Dental takes pride in our avid involvement within the community. On a corporate level, we have sponsored events as big as the Northeast Delta Dental International, a Symetra LPGA Tournament, to much smaller but equally as important, road races to support community organizations. I truly believe that when you get involved with the community you come back a better employee. Since we are passionate with our community involvement and our employees we created two programs that allow our employees to get involved with their favorite nonprofits.
Our two programs, the Employee Community Involvement Grant (ECIG) and Volunteer Involvement Pays (VIP), allow colleagues two different ways to get involved. With the ECIG program, employees can apply for up to $200 a year to assist an organization that they volunteer for. The VIP program allows employees to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty on company time. We provide 7.5 hours of paid volunteer time per employee, each year. Last year we had just over 100 volunteering hours and as of June, we have already clocked in 70 hours!
On the Northeast Delta Dental Radio Show a few weeks ago, we had eight employees join us who are actively involved to talk about their experiences. It was great to hear, first hand, the positive feedback and appreciation they felt for having an opportunity like this. Some of the organizations that are mentioned in this podcast include The Friendly Kitchen, a local Concord soup kitchen, the Child and Family Development Center on the NHTI campus, the Concord-Merrimack County SPCA, and School Gardens. These are all local organizations and all hand selected by our own Northeast Delta Dental employees because they coincide with their passions. I invite you to listen to this podcast to learn more about the organizations and hear about their experiences.
My hope is to inspire other companies to offer similar opportunities whether it is through financial sponsorships like our ECIG program or from more of a human resources perspective like our VIP program. By helping others you will be helping yourself more than you know.
