Thousands of company employees donated their own money, which the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation matched, to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Employee-Driven Contributions

Bristol-Myers Squibb employees represent the face of their company in the communities where they live. They fully appreciate the importance of making a difference in those communities based on the values expressed in the Bristol-Myers Squibb Pledge as well as the experiences and values they each bring to their own work and home lives.

By supporting a coordinated campaign for the United Way, employees are offered an opportunity to direct how the Foundation’s as well as their own contributions are allocated. The Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation matches employee contributions, which can be directed to specific local health and welfare social service and health care organizations, on a dollar-for-dollar basis. In addition to the United Way campaign, the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation and local business units also encourage efforts to extend employee volunteerism by making contributions to many of those agencies through an employee volunteer award program. Finally, through the Foundation’s Matching Gifts program, employees and retirees support educational and biomedical research institutions and inpatient hospitals.

United Way contributions by company employees reached $2.57 million in 2005. With the Foundation match, total United Way contributions came to $5.1 million.

Employee volunteer awards, which provide Foundation grants to nonprofit organizations at which employees volunteer, as well as the Foundation’s scholarship program and the inpatient hospital, and educational and biomedical research institutions matching gifts program, totaled more than $3.9 million.

During 2005, employees contributed generously with a dollar for dollar match to relief organizations for Hurricane Katrina relief, relief for the victims of the Pakistan earthquake as well as, in late 2004, for the Asian Tsunami relief.