Loading ...One of the most successful corporate community projects ever
In what has become one of the most successful corporate community projects ever, CIBC and the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation raised more than $33-million through the participation of more than 175,000 people in the annual Run for the Cure. Donations rose 23 per cent and participation 3 per cent to record highs.
CIBC,which became the title sponsor of the Run for the Cure back in 1997,the bank hadn’t set out looking for a project to support cancer research. Rather,it recognized that the run had become a passionate cause of many of its employees,and it saw an opportunity to put its brand and resources behind an existing movement.
“Too many companies try to manufacture these [community projects] for perhaps reasons more self-driven than cause-driven,” says Stephen Forbes,executive vice-president of marketing and communications for CIBC. “You have to keep the real motive in mind,and for us it has always been supporting our employees.”
Keeping it real has meant resisting all attempts,including internal ones,to attach any business development to the Run for the Cure. Seventy per cent of the bank’s staff is female,and as a sign of how passionate CIBC employees are to the breast cancer cause,more than one-quarter of the 40,000 across the country participated in the run.
