Viacom’s Viacommunity
Viacom is home to iconic brands such as MTV, VH1, CMT, BET, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, TV Land, and Spike and film studio Paramount Picture, engaging fans through the issues that matter most to them.
Whether it’s diversity and inclusion, education, health and wellness or the most pressing social issues, Viacom brands use their unique voices to spark authentic and meaningful dialogue. That conversation starts with their nearly 10,000 employees through Viacommunity, an ongoing movement to improve communities through volunteerism and good works.
What started as a global, annual day of service over 20 years ago, has grown into a movement that uses the company’s most valuable resource – their people – to make a direct impact in their communities.
Viacommunity’s efforts can be broken up into four branches:
- Talent for Good is Viacom’s pro-bono volunteer platform, which gives employees the chance to offer their professional expertise and skills to the nonprofits and causes they care about, even if they only have an hour to commit.
- UP Mentoring pairs employees with high school students to mentor those students that have both the greatest potential and need while developing their understanding of the media and entertainment industry and establishing a lasting relationship.
- Ongoing Volunteer Opportunities offer a continuous stream of ongoing volunteer opportunities with volunteer projects for every major holiday.
- Viacommunity Day, Viacom’s global day of service in which they encourage all employees worldwide to give back to their communities. Projects range from cleaning parks, painting murals, working with animals in shelters, or providing mentoring to high school students. Last year, more than half of Viacom’s employees worldwide took part in a Viacommunity project. In a survey of almost 9,000 employees, Corporate Responsibility/Viacommunity scored the highest of the 13 companywide categories with 85% of those who responded saying they are proud of Viacom’s involvement in the community and pro-social causes.
Based off of this feedback, Viacom set an ambitious goal of increasing employee volunteer time to 100,000 hours and Paramount is aiming to increase employee participation in its programs by 3-5%.
Because of its diverse array of events and programs throughout the year, Viacommunity has had a wide impact on a variety of causes across the world, ranging from animal welfare, HIV/AIDS, youth homelessness, global hunger, LGBTQ issues, and many more. Through Talent for Good alone they have partnered with more than 100 organizations and have saved non-profits over $500,000 in professional services.
