2014 Pillar Award for Community Service, Northeast Ohio
Alexander Cutler
Chairman and CEO
Eaton Corp.
www.eaton.com
Letting Employees Decide
Building stronger communities has always been part of Eaton Corp.’s mission. Time and time again, it invests its time and resources toward local efforts for the goal of better places to live and work.
But Eaton, a worldwide energy provider, takes a unique approach to corporate giving. The company allows workers at each local facility to determine where large financial contributions get distributed in their communities. Each year, donations go to hundreds of varying and diverse organizations, each tailored to the needs of the specific community.
In 2013, Cleveland area Eaton employees contributed more than $2.5 million to the United Way of Greater Cleveland. Additionally, many of its Cleveland area employees volunteer their time on more than 90 nonprofit boards.
Eaton bases its yearly contributions on a rolling average of annual profits. And as Eaton grows, so does its contributions. In 2013, the company contributed $9.3 million, including more than $750,000 in corporate matches via its retiree and employee matching gift program. So when Eaton employees donated $3.7 million to 93 local United Way campaigns in 2013, the company added an additional $1.9 million. That’s a grand total of $5.6 million for United Way alone.
During the past year, Eaton also contributed more than $369,000 over and above employee-matching donations to disaster relief funds, including the flooding in Calgary, Canada; an earthquake in Sichuan, China; a typhoon in the Philippines; and a tornado in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
