Giving Back to our Communities

This month, to celebrate the first birthday of inDay, we returned to a theme that began at the very first one --  volunteering -- and watched more than 200 employees give back to their local communities worldwide through volunteer efforts.

For those of you new to inDay, it's a Friday each month when LinkedIn employees have a “no meeting day” and the opportunity to work on something which may not be on their daily task list. Each inDay has a theme to get the creative juices flowing, but the activities ultimately follow our colleagues’ passions.

Since our first inDay, themes have covered Education, Financial Responsibility, Play, Fitness, Global Connections and Entrepreneurs. Our “Women at LinkedIn” and “LinkedIn for Education” interest groups were born on inDays. We have welcomed children from local schools, the Boys and Girls Club and our employees’ kids to campus.

This month, in Chicago, our sales folks made it a priority to give back, weaving volunteer activities into calendars crammed with client calls. Employees participated in a food drive for the Greater Chicago Food Depository along with their New York counterparts who supported City Harvest. Others in Chicago donated professional interview clothing to Goldie’s Place and household items to Goodwill.  A team of cat lovers dedicated their afternoon to the Tree House Animal Shelter. One of our colleagues, Dominic Bardele, used his inDay to benefit a nonprofit which raises money for prostate cancer research. Dominic not only helped the founder set up his LinkedIn Company Profile, but he also educated the team on using LinkedIn to help grow his charity.

Steve Cadigan, LinkedIn’s VP of People Operations, out-of-office e-mail greeting said it all Friday, “Thanks for your email. Today is a special day at LinkedIn called inDay and I am taking time with my colleagues to volunteer in our community to help some great organizations.”

So, what were our teams upto? LinkedIn employees in Mountain View traveled across the Bay Area to volunteer. Here's a few projects our teams volunteered for:

• Sorting, chopping and organizing recycled school supplies to support 9,500 underprivileged students throughout the Bay Area at Resource Area for Teaching (RAFT) (led by Bryan Breckenridge)

• Filling over 100 comfort bags with stuffed animals, clothes, blankets, books and more to be delivered to the sick children and teens residing at the house at Ronald McDonald House.

• Creating hundreds of curriculum kits for schools with Reading Partners.

• Cooking and serving a hot meal to the hungry at All Saints Church in Palo Alto through InnVision (led by Annette Dow)

• Prepaing an ice cream social for and spending quality hang out time with local seniors. (led by Charles Hsieh and Swasti Sharma)
• Cleaning up the beach with SLEWTHS (led by Olivia Cheung)

• Labeling 1620 children’s books to be delivered to a teen parent program by Bring Me a Book.

• Bagging 583 3-pound bags of carrots (to be distributed to hungry families with Second Harvest Food Bank.  (led by Kevin Scott)

A huge thanks to Courtney Muniz, our employee engagement summer intern who made all of this a reality.  Every month I head home for the weekend on inDay Friday feeling energized and overwhelmed by the passion and creative energy around me.  Stay tuned for highlights from next month’s inDay when we’ll explore our school spirit.