The Reader’s Digest Foundation is a charitable institution funded by contributions from Reader’s Digest Association. Just as Reader’s Digest takes pride in products that enrich the lives of people worldwide, Reader’s Digest Foundation is enriching lives as well.
Our Mission
The Reader’s Digest Foundation is dedicated to creating opportunities and promoting efforts that encourage employees to make a positive difference in their local and global communities, wherever help is needed.
To address this mission, RDF:
* Partners with local nonprofit organizations to create workplace opportunities for RDA employees to volunteer their time and share their expertise
* Makes grants to support selected nonprofit partner organizations involved in employee workplace initiatives
* Encourages RDA employees to contribute to their own communities through volunteerism and individual philanthropy
Our Current Program
RDA Cares Community Service and Giving Program
RDA Cares engages our employees in community service and helps them to enrich the communities where they live and work. It includes community service initiatives in the workplace and related nonprofit partner grants as well as intranet resources where employees can find or post volunteer opportunities outside of work. In addition, it offers our employees grants to support their efforts to volunteer in their own communities and contribute to the charities important to them.
Workplace Initiatives:
The RDA Cares initiatives create opportunities where employees can volunteer their time and share their expertise. The RDA Cares Committee is a group of dedicated employees who help plan and implement several workplace initiatives each year at all of our U.S. locations and encourage their fellow employees throughout the company to join in. Our major workplace initiatives include:
Back to School Clothes for Kids
Employees purchase new school outfits, winter coats and sneakers for children from nearby family homeless shelters and host a party for them where they receive their new clothes and celebrate the new school year.
Holiday Helping Hands
During the winter holiday season, employees provide gifts and meals for children and their families from underserved communities, supporting a variety of nonprofit organizations at RDA sites throughout the country.
Day of Caring
Each spring, employees participate in the Day of Caring by volunteering at local nonprofit organizations. From getting a summer camp ready for inner-city children to helping a local Hunger Task Force sort food to feed the hungry, to cleaning and cooking for families of seriously ill children hospitalized far from home, employees across the country team up with their colleagues to give back to their communities.
Resources to Find and Post Volunteer Opportunities Outside of Work
To follow our mission of supporting and encouraging employee volunteerism, RDA Cares also provides a special section on our intranet devoted to providing information on volunteer opportunities. Employees can search the site to find opportunities to participate in near home and also post opportunities important to them that they’d like their colleagues to know about.
Employee Grants
Our generous RDA Cares employee grant programs support our mission of encouraging our employees’ efforts to volunteer in their own communities and contribute to the charities important to them. Our Matching Gift Program maximizes employees’ charitable donations by matching personal contributions of $25 or more to charities of their choice, up to a total employee match of $10,000 a year. Our Volunteer Incentive Program (VIP) provides grants made on behalf of employees to charities where they volunteer outside of work. Two types of grants are available, one for on-going volunteering and the other for volunteering at a one-time project. Our employees are eligible for one of each type per year.
The Reader’s Digest Foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals.