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In addition to deploying the Company’s core competencies to apply technology and resources to address fundamental health issues. BD supports volunteerism and philanthropy in many ways, from matching associate donations to supplying BD products to aid disaster relief efforts.
Associate Volunteerism
“Helping all people live healthy lives” is BD’s corporate purpose and the inspiration behind our global enterprise. It is also a call to action that resounds with BD associates the world over. By giving our time, our talent and our resources, we not only improve many lives, but also save many more. In the U.S., eligible associates are entitled to take up to 15 paid hours to perform community service annually. The number of associates participating in the program continues to grow. In 2007, BD associates volunteered a total of 6,612 hours of volunteer time during regular working hours.
The following stories highlight just a few examples of how BD associates around the globe are volunteering their time to help reduce the burden of disease, raise health standards, protect the environment and ensure safe workplace conditions. Examples during 2007 include:
- Belgium: In April 2007, a team of 60 BD associates cycled over 6,000 km (3,728 mi) to raise over $4,000 (3,000 €) for a children’s charity, Vierdewereldgroep Mensen voor Mensen in Aalst. The charity provides material and financial support to help underprivileged children attend school trips and summer camps. BD contributed 0.5€ for every kilometer ridden by a BD associate in the Tour of Flanders amateur road cycling event.
- Mexico: To celebrate “Forest Month,” BD collaborated with the Environmental Protection Agency of the Delegation of Naucalpan to organize a tree planting event in Villa Alpina, an area of northern Mexico City. In just one day in July 2007, more than 350 BD associates, friends and families planted over 4,000 trees. The associates' goal was to help replenish Mexico’s forests for environmental benefits such as improving the habitat of area wildlife, preventing erosion and purifying the air.
- San Diego: A group of 39 BD associates, along with family and friends, raised $19,262 and participated in a 5K walk/10K run to support HIV/AIDS service and education organizations in the San Diego area. BD associates’ support for San Diego’s 18th annual AIDS Walk earned the Company a booth at the post-walk festival, where they publicized BD’s Global Health initiatives and commitment to volunteerism to an estimated 16,000 participants.
Honoring a Legacy While Recognizing a New Generation of Volunteers
As you can see from the above stories, BD associates and retirees share a long and proud history of contributing their time and talents to make a difference in the lives of people around the world. They volunteer to help others in numerous ways that reflect their creativity, diversity and myriad talents.
The BD Henry Becton Community Service Awards Program honors BD Director Emeritus Henry P. Becton's lifelong commitment to community and BD's legacy of community service. It recognizes excellence and creativity in community involvement by the award-winning BD associates and retirees and makes financial contributions in their names to the organizations for which they volunteer. In 2007, BD awarded grants of up to $5,000 to 12 nonprofit organizations around the world.
The BD associates and retirees who were honored in 2007 include individual volunteers, as well as teams of associates at BD locations. Some provide essential services to help people cope with problems in their lives. Others work to improve the quality of life in their communities through social service, cultural and environmental programs.
BD Associate Volunteer Service Trip Program
Through the BD Associate Volunteer Service Trip Program, initiated in 2005, BD sends associate teams to remote health facilities in developing countries to help build local health capacity through training, construction, health services and laboratory strengthening.
- In 2005, BD collaborated with the Catholic Medical Mission Board (CMMB) to send teams of BD associates to five health centers in Zambia to help strengthen the country’s capacity to diagnose and treat HIV/AIDS.
- Recognizing the need for follow up, BD associates returned to Zambia in 2006 to continue their work at the same health centers.
- In 2007, BD collaborated with Direct Relief International to send BD associates to help upgrade three healthcare clinics in Ghana.
Philanthropic Activities
Among the many additional examples of BD’s philanthropic activities to support global healthcare are the following:
- U.S. Fund for UNICEF: BD was the founding partner in the Fund’s effort to support UNICEF's goal of eliminating maternal and neonatal tetanus (MNT) worldwide. BD committed substantial monetary and in-kind donations (including 135 million safe injection devices) to prevent the spread of HIV and other diseases in the MNT immunization initiative.
- Save the Children: BD provided philanthropic support to Save the Children for the establishment of clinics for HIV-positive children in Eastern Europe and Asia.
- Meningitis Campaign: BD worked with three humanitarian organizations - Heart to Heart International, Project HOPE and Catholic Medical Mission Board - to deliver nearly 600,000 total doses of meningitis vaccine to people in need throughout the Dominican Republic. BD donated 600,000 syringes, sharps containers and alcohol wipes, and Meningitec® (meningococcal serogroup C) vaccines were provided by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. (Meningitec is a trademark of Wyeth.)
- Pan American Health Organization (PAHO): BD supported PAHO's rubella immunization campaign in Haiti. Working through Catholic Medical Mission Board, BD donated 5.4 million BD SoloShot™ syringes.
In fiscal year 2007, BD contributed $8 million in cash and product to our non-profit partners to support global health initiatives (HIV/AIDS, TB, malaria, infectious diseases and immunization), diabetes, other health, education and research, and civic and social welfare.
Top Ten Grants for 2007
Since BD was founded in 1897, we have actively donated cash, product and expertise to non-profit and educational organizations in North America and throughout the world. Our top ten grants in 2007 were:
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American Red Cross – Measles Initiative:
The Measles Initiative is a commitment to vaccinate 200 million African children over five years. Leading this effort are the American Red Cross, United Nations Foundation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization and the United Nations Children's Fund.
BD’s support of the program has allowed for the vaccination of more than 400 million children, helping to reduce measles deaths by 68 percent globally compared with 2000. |
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Direct Relief International – BD Associate Volunteer Service Trip to Ghana:
BD and Direct Relief International, a humanitarian medical aid nonprofit organization, launched a joint volunteer initiative to strengthen healthcare in two areas of Ghana. Beyond product and monetary donations, BD associates contributed time and expertise in nursing and laboratory science to help people in Ghana treat disease and improve lives by raising health standards. For more information, see Ghana Volunteer Trip 2007. |
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Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC) Foundation – Institute for Clinically Effective Care:
HUMC recognizes the growing healthcare demands associated with care for patients with diabetes and other common chronic illnesses and is meeting those needs through the Institute, with an initial emphasis on improving the effectiveness of diabetes care. Activities have been undertaken to improve glycemic control for these patients. BD's support has enabled the Institute to make new strides to improve the quality of care for patients with diabetes. |
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Fairleigh Dickinson University – Henry P. Becton School of Nursing and Allied Health
BD funding supports the expansion of the Henry P. Becton School of Nursing and Allied Health to include a doctoral program to prepare nurses for leadership in the clinical and education areas. The program is a two-track process including clinical and education areas that will prepare nurses as leaders in each focus. |
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Columbia University’s Earth Institute - Millennium Villages
BD is an HIV/AIDS collaborating partner of the Millennium Villages Project, and our grant funding has enabled the project’s Deputy Health Coordinator and HIV/AIDS Coordinator to reach 400,000 people across 12 sites in 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and expand the availability of comprehensive HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment. BD’s commitment also includes collaboration on diagnostic and clinical infrastructure and core competency needs.
The Millennium Villages Project seeks to fight extreme poverty through the use of proven, practical technologies that improve health, education, farm productivity and access to markets. Overseen by the Earth Institute, Millennium Promise and the UN Millennium Project, this project uses affordable, science-based solutions and investments to raise the productivity of these impoverished communities and put them on the course to self-sustained growth. |
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Academic Alliance Foundation
BD supports the Academic Alliance Foundation’s Center of Excellence in Laboratory Training at the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI) at Makere University in Kampala, Uganda. BD has committed cash and product to the BD Laboratory Training Program, which addresses the increasing demand for accurate infectious disease diagnosis and surveillance. This is a regional center of excellence for infectious diseases treatment, training and research in sub-Saharan Africa. With a primary mission to improve the quality of healthcare delivery in Africa, the IDI training program began in April 2002 to train Ugandan physicians in HIV diagnosis, care and treatment at a critical time when scale-up with antiretroviral therapy was beginning and few were trained in this specialized area. The model has adapted and grown in scale to train nurses, clinical officers, pharmacists and dispensers. Curricula are tailored to meet the needs of multidisciplinary healthcare teams. As of December 2007, over 1,200 African healthcare workers from over 26 countries had graduated from this program. |
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FIND
Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death for people with AIDS. In fiscal year 2007, BD committed more than $300,000 in cash, product and training to continue our long-term support of FIND and its program to improve the diagnosis of TB in developing countries. FIND is a non-profit organization that supports and promotes the health of people in developing countries by sponsoring the development and introduction of new but affordable diagnostic tools. |
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IAVI
BD contributes cash, product and technical expertise to IAVI, a global nonprofit organization searching for safe, effective and accessible AIDS vaccines. BD’s renewed commitment of cash and product donations to IAVI total nearly $900,000 over three years, starting in fiscal year 2008, to increase IAVI’s access to critical diagnostic technologies such as the BD FACSCount™ system, CD4 test kits and BD Vacutainer® products. IAVI has an international public/private partnership with the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine in London to foster AIDS vaccine development. |
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Institute for Health Technology Studies
InHealth was founded by AdvaMed, the world’s largest medical technology trade association, in 2003 to help overcome misperceptions about the role played by medical devices and diagnostics in the nation’s escalating healthcare costs. InHealth is becoming a resource for knowledge about the value and impact of medical devices and diagnostics through the funding and dissemination of peer-reviewed research studies conducted at renowned academic institutions, and through the sponsorship of educational initiatives. Critical research aimed at validating the in vitro diagnostic (“IVD”) tests and specific research in the IVD arena could better establish the value of active surveillance as an important contributor to reducing healthcare-associated infections. |
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Global Business Coalition (GBC)
BD joined the Global Business Coalition in 2006 to support the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and malaria. The GBC’s mission is to leverage the power of the global business community to fight the HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria epidemics worldwide. The coalition harnesses the individual and collective power of the world’s top corporations to fight AIDS at the local, national and international levels. |
BD Product Donation Program and Disaster Relief
BD’s Social Investing department works closely with international nonprofit agencies and organizations to achieve humanitarian goals through in-kind product donations. We routinely donate our products to international relief agencies in an effort to efficiently and fairly allocate BD resources.
To ensure that donated BD products reach areas where their distribution is most critical, the Company relies on the expertise and experience of various U.S.-based, non-governmental relief organizations. Through these established relationships, BD delivers millions of dollars worth of vital products that address the critical needs arising in emergency situations and support healthcare services that meet the ongoing needs of at-risk populations.
BD is an active member of Partnership for Quality Medical Donations (PQMD), which requires the Company to adhere to the World Health Organization's guidelines on appropriate healthcare product donations. PQMD and its members, in alliance with related organizations, is dedicated to the development, dissemination and adherence to high standards in the delivery of medical products to under-served people and disaster victims around the world.
In 2007, our partners assisted with relief efforts across the globe. In addition to cash funding, in many cases BD product was shipped to the areas affected within hours of the disaster. BD’s contributions in 2007 include:
- April 2007 – A Nor’easter storm affected seven states in the U.S. BD contributed $75,000 to the American Red Cross for national assistance; the United Ways of Bergen and Passaic Counties split a $25,000 grant for local relief efforts in New Jersey.
- May 2007 – A powerful tornado struck the farming community of Greensburg, Kansas, leaving more than 90 percent of the town uninhabitable. To help the devastated community, BD immediately donated $21,000 to Heart to Heart International to help support their Mobile Medical Unit for a two-week period following the disaster. The unit, situated on Main Street in Greensburg, saw more than 650 patients over a 30-day period. Heart to Heart is a U.S.-based global humanitarian organization that works to improve health and responds to the needs of disaster victims worldwide. The group specializes in delivering essential medicines and supplies, as well as providing the necessary training to increase the level of medical care in underserved regions of the world. With BD's support, Heart to Heart and its volunteer medical staff in Greensburg were able to serve as the sole healthcare provider to thousands of emergency workers and town residents.
- August 2007 – When an earthquake rocked Peru, our product partners (AmeriCares, Direct Relief International, Heart to Heart International and International Aid) were among the first responders, shipping BD product to the affected areas within hours of the disaster. When China was affected by flooding, Heart to Heart was on the ground assisting those affected with BD product.
- October 2007 – BD donated product including ACE® bandages to Direct Relief International to assist those affected by the California wildfires. BD provided $50,000 each to Direct Relief International and the American Red Cross and $25,000 to the United Way, a total of $125,000.
BD Matching Gifts Program
This program recognizes that every one of us, in community service as well as in business, can make a difference through volunteer efforts and personal donations. BD matches donations made by eligible associates and retirees to a wide range of nonprofit charitable organizations that meet program guidelines. In addition, for these nonprofits, BD will also match specified hours of volunteer service with a financial donation. Thousands of gifts are matched each year to support hundreds of nonprofit efforts in the areas of health, environmental protection, arts and culture, social welfare, education and more. In 2007, BD matched $1.73 million of monetary gifts and volunteer time.
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