News and Press Releases

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Wins Award for its Volunteerism with Hearth

Press Release
October 21, 2009

Boston, MA—Hearth is recognizing Harvard Pilgrim with its Distinguished Service Award for its innovative approach to corporate responsibility. The award will be given at its 2009 Annual Meeting on November 4th which focuses on social innovation and features keynote speaker Susan Musinsky, Executive Director of the Social Innovation Forum, a Root Cause initiative.

Harvard Pilgrim takes social responsibility seriously, giving employees time off to volunteer, providing mini-grants to employees who have identified specific needs of nonprofits (paint, shrubs, art supplies and even a Wii Console for clients), and identifying employees for nonprofit Boards.

About two years ago, the Customer Service Department of Harvard Pilgrim administered a survey to its 200 employees in order to determine their highest priorities for volunteering. Serving children, the elderly, and the homeless were the top choices. Harvard Pilgrim chose Hearth as an organization where two priorities—elders and the homeless—could be served together.

According to Lisa Farnham, Training and Development Manager of Customer Service and Sales Operations at Harvard Pilgrim, Hearth has been increasingly popular with employees, who have contributed to yard clean-ups and painting of the residences, summer cookouts, food pantry contributions (over 1,000 non-perishable items), and purchasing of facility and resident items, including Thanksgiving dinner and a Wii gaming system that has engaged residents in physical therapy and cognitive stimulation.

Harvard Pilgrim Customer Service staff have exceeded their year-end goals to become good corporate citizens. In the first 9 months of this year, 150 Customer Service staff have logged in more than 518 hours of volunteer time—close to double their goal for the entire year. And, this staff has received 96 corporate mini-grants of $500 each - a total of $48,000 for local charities. The bottom line is that employees, proud of their pro bono activities, are more productive at work with more positive morale.

"The Harvard Pilgrim mini-grants were established following 9/11 to help strengthen community commitment and participation," according to Michael Devlin, Community Service Program Manager of the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation. Recently the Boston Business Journal at its Corporate Citizen Summit recognized Harvard Pilgrim as the 6th largest corporate charitable contributor, donating more than $7.5 million.