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Senior Centers with IBM Retiree
Contact May Get Internet Help
June 29, 2004 – Senior centers
with a contact to an IBM retiree may find help with enhanced Internet
service due to an expansion of the IBM On Demand Community that will
enable approximately 160,000 IBM retirees to leverage new technology
tools to increase the impact and value of volunteer efforts in senior
centers, schools and other local agencies.
"This initiative marks the first time that a major
corporation has made valuable technology assets and business innovation
available for free -- anytime, anywhere -- to its retired workforce,"
said Stanley S. Litow, president of the IBM Foundation and vice
president of IBM Corporate Community Relations.
For retiree volunteers who donate time to community
organizations, On Demand Community gives retiree volunteers access to
innovative new IBM technology that will help clients of senior centers
and organizations for the disabled access and see the Internet better.
Other tools include curricula for after school community programs, and
tools that lead community nonprofits through a step-by-step technology
assessment and the creation of a technology plan that will help the
organization better serve its clients.
According to Civic Ventures, a national
organization focused on volunteerism among older Americans, nearly half
of all Americans aged 55 or older have volunteered at least once in the
previous year. Even among those aged 75 and older, 43 percent had
volunteered at some point in the previous year.
"Our statistics tell us that IBM retirees figure
prominently in this trend, and that's why we believe On Demand Community
will have such a great impact -- for the individual and for the
community," Litow said. "One of the features on the Web site enables
employees and retirees to select a high-impact volunteer project,
whether they have one hour a week to give, or one hour a year."
"Our own research indicates that many IBM retirees
donate more than 35 to 40 hours a month in significant community work in
schools and small nonprofit organizations in real need of the kind of
expertise IBM retirees can provide," Litow said. "The goal of IBM On
Demand Community is to help our employees and retirees make a bigger
difference when they volunteer. By giving them access to 21st Century
technology tools and other resources, communities worldwide stand to
benefit tremendously."
IBM launched On Demand Community for its employees
in late 2003. Managed by a company intranet Web site available to
employees worldwide, the initiative includes a full range of technology
solutions designed specifically for volunteer work in schools and
nonprofit organizations. IBM leaders always intended to include its
retiree population in the program, but first had to implement new
technology that would enable its retirees to enter the company intranet
site that had traditionally been reserved for current employees.
The technology solutions now available to IBM
retiree volunteers include dynamic classroom presentations that
emphasize the importance of math and science, helping teachers use the
internet to bring classroom teaching alive, helping local education
officials lead change in schools, online mentoring of students and more.
"I haven't come across any major corporation that
has developed the resource capacity that IBM On Demand Community will
provide its retirees," said Kathy Burnes, Senior Research Associate at
The Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College. The Center is
conducting ground-breaking research involving the role of retirees in
civic engagement as part of a three-year project led by Volunteers of
America and funded by the Atlantic Philanthropies. "The scope of this
initiative and the idea that retirees can tap into company resources and
provide them on an individual basis in their communities is unique," she
said.
National organizations that study and research
volunteerism say IBM's On Demand Community is the first corporate
initiative to include its retirees to this degree. IBM has over 114,000
U.S. retirees, and approximately 50,000 more abroad. IBM currently
employs over 320,000 persons in 164 countries around the world.
IBM launched On Demand Community for its employees
in late November, 2003. Since then, over 16,000 employees have
registered at the web site and are tracking their hours to be eligible
for grants of technology or cash awards to the organizations where they
volunteer. The company expects to have more than 25,000 active On Demand
Community volunteers by 2005.
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