Volunteering and giving have always been a large part of employee culture at Hewlett Packard, whether it be Global Impact Days or through the Office of Social Innovation’s technology and education programs.

Recently, HP launched a pilot program to use GG gift cards to simply say, thank you.

Ahead of the curve on recently emerging Harvard Business School research on what drives employee happiness and motivation, HP is using our e-gift cards to recognize employee volunteers who report their volunteer hours each month.  Every HP employee, worldwide, who reports their hours, receives a $25 gift card via email, which can be redeemed for any project on GlobalGiving.org.

The study notes, “when organizations give employees the opportunity to spend money on others – whether their co-workers or those in need – both the employees and the company benefit, with increased happiness and job satisfaction, and even improved team performance.”

Already the research is proving true for HP employees like Michael Penor, who provided the following feedback, “It was interesting to have a variety of causes to choose from for my donation. I feel like I found an organization that is important to me personally, and will go toward influencing a young person in a positive way.” Caroline Barlerin, Director of Community Involvement, in the Office of Global Social Innovation at HP agreed, stating, “Using GlobalGiving gift cards have provided us with a fast, easy way to reward our employees around the world for their commitment to their communities.”

It’s a win-win for HP: employees feel appreciated and recognized for their volunteerism, the team tracking HP’s corporate citizenship commitments engage employees in an innovative way, and HP acknowledges employees living HP values of community involvement by enabling employees to do even more good and support our global projects.

Thank you HP.

… that was a subject of an email we received today from Katie Meyler, a project leader behind the Elementary Scholarships for Liberian Children project on our site. This wasn’t our first email from Katie; several different GlobalGiving staffers have worked with Katie and the More Than Me Foundation since they joined the site through one of our Global Open Challenges. But today’s email from Katie was what every non-profit worker loves to hear – a success story that we couldn’t have written better ourselves:

Dearest Global Giving Friends,
It’s been about a year now, maybe a little bit longer since Stephanie signed us up for that thing where you get 50 + people to donate $4,000 or more.  I just wanted to say thank you again; Global Giving really has been a game changer for More Than Me.  Last year we only had a couple thousand dollars in our account and struggled to figure out how we were going to sustain 33 girls in school for 3 years.  This year we will get to help around 75 to 100 girls get off the street and into school  and provide all they need to stay there for the next 3 years!  I know you guys are working in offices and rarely get to visit the projects so I wanted to help you understand how your work really is changing small pockets of our world.

I was just in Liberia less than 2 months ago.  We work in the poorest slum in the country, West Point.  People refer to it as the bottom of the bottom and Liberians do not even want to visit and don’t believe me when I tell them that is where we work.  Truthfully, I don’t find it to be as scary and dangerous as people say, it’s just extremely poor.  I was walking in West Point early one morning and I see this 6 year old little girl squatting in the dirt under some tin for shade.  She had a bucket, broken flip flops, and a tray of peanuts which she was selling.  I walked by we smiled into eachothers eyes.  She followed me, trying to make it seem like she wasn’t, hiding behind market tables.  Long story short, I found out her name, Musu.  I got her some new shoes and put our project manager’s name and number in the bucket and told Musu to tell her mom to call.  Her mom did and I ended up meeting Musu’s mom.  Musu is the provider for her family because her mother is going blind.  She would never have the opportunity to go to school and this fall she will start.  Truthfully, I can’t WAIT to get back to Liberia and see her and Princess, Elizabeth, Agnes, and the others who all have similar stories.

I don’t pretend More Than Me is changing the world but putting Musu in school changes her world.  We are able to put this many girls in school this year largely because of the donors that come to us through Global Giving (holy moly Christmas time was awesome this year), wining the Ford Focus contest which we wouldnt have known about if it wasn’t for you, and the money and attention raised from winning this contest.  Things are not perfect, we still have SO MUCH to do.  We are all still volunteers, Steph is still working a full time job, I’m still living on couches but we have come A LONG LONG way this year and it’s mostly because we signed up at Global Giving.  I never stop singing your praises.  I tell every small non-profit I can to sign up if they want to grow.

Thanks again for all you do, your computer job or whatever it is you do REALLY does translate into Musu off the street and into school.

More Than Me is Because You are,
From the heart,

Katie & team More Than Me

We hope that Katie’s story is inspiring to you whether you’re a donor, a project leader or even a new visitor to the GlobalGiving site.  Our project team works hard to help grassroots project leaders access funding for their ideas; it’s great food for the soul to hear how our “computer jobs” helped put Musu in school! If you’ve donated to a GlobalGiving project, then we hope you know that you and your computer job/waitressing gig/stay-at-home parent role are also doing global good!

Friday March 11th passed in something of a blur. I woke up, heard about the largest earthquake ever to hit Japan, and started speed dialing my family and friends. Earthquakes happen frequently in Japan, so every couple of years I end up calling, “Just to make sure.” But this time, I’d gotten an email in the middle of my night, immediately after the earthquake struck in Japan mid-afternoon, from a friend saying, “This might be it. If anything happens to me, please look out for my daughter.” But all circuits were busy. OK, try again later. From the quick snippets of news I saw, neither my family nor friends were anywhere near the epicenter. “Later” eventually got to be too late for me to be hassling people who may have been through a big scare and may have just gotten to sleep. So wait until the end of the day here, when it would be morning in Japan. Distract myself with work.

But working at GlobalGiving requires us to be on top of disasters, and much of the day we were scrambling like crazy to figure out what the scale of the damage was, where our project partners in Japan were, and how we could make sure to channel the outpouring of generosity that was already hitting our servers starting first thing in the morning. So I became glued to livestreamed TV from Japan. I couldn’t get away from it. Knowing all I do about how difficult it is for laypeople to help directly, it was difficult to resist the feeling that I needed to get on a plane back home. Maybe I could get through to my friends and family that way.

It’s inevitable when disasters happen that commentators point out that philanthropists might want to wait until after the immediate relief phase is over. But as I kept up my stream of emails into Japan, checking on existing organizations we work with, and looking for the right new organizations, I’ve been struck by how everyone I have been communicating with is so heartened to hear that someone wants to help, that someone out there cares enough from thousands of miles away to reach out.

GlobalGiving is working hard to identify the best local partners on the ground to receive these funds.  Already, our immediate disaster response partners are having an impact.  Save the Children is working to deliver psychosocial support aimed at children, establishing child-friendly spaces in affected communities, providing support to parents, teachers, and other key caregivers, and working alongside local communities to train volunteers in sounseling techniques to help children after this disaster.  International Medical Corps has already put together relief teams and supplies and have been in contact with partners in Japan in the first day of the disaster.  In the coming days we’ll continue to identify additional Japanese organizations providing relief following the earthquake and tsunami and will keep you updated by email about how the funds are used and the impact your donation is making.

I was glued to the livestream most of Sunday too. It was Monday morning in Japan and TV reporters were positioned at train stations to cover how people were getting back to work. But many stations unexpectedly were closed and people ended up waiting for taxis instead. Then, the litany of train lines that were not running came on–for close to 5 minutes. That spoke volumes. It only made me realize that I had an unspoken hope that life would start returning to normal–and it wasn’t going to. At least for now. The city of Tokyo is at a virtual standstill. Friends in the suburbs are wandering around looking for ATMs with cash and stores with food. Rolling blackouts are finally being implemented. Everyone–including people who weren’t directly affected–is going around in a daze.

And yes, I got through to everybody Friday evening. Everyone I know is safe. But to have thousands of people willing to help means more than I can say.