Comcast Cares Day
Giving back to communities should be more than a one-time-a-year experience, but when a company is as big as Comcast (more than 100,000 employees) and as powerful, that one day is going to have a major impact outside and inside the company. The cable operator, programmer and, more recently, parent company of NBC Universal, launched its first Comcast Cares Day in 2001. In that pre-social networking era Comcast mobilized 6,000 volunteers—employees and employees’ family and friends—to fan out in their individual communities and devote a day to giving back. On April 30, 2011, nearly 70,000 volunteers worked with organizations such as National Urban League, United Way, Boys & Girls Clubs and Big Brothers Big Sisters to rehabilitate public parks, plant sustainable food gardens and clean up schools. The 10th annual Comcast Cares day spanned 39 states and Washington, D.C., and, together with Comcast’s renowned leadership in using social media for customer service, it has helped redefine the public’s image of cable companies—even though Comcast is now far more than just a provider of your HBO signal. —SG