The General Motors Foundation

The General Motors Foundation

Taylor L Darby

Northwood University

Abstract

The General Motors Foundation is an organization with focuses on sustainability, safety, and STEM education to secure a role in the future of the automotive industry. Various initiatives help the foundation achieve these goals and with a revised mission to make an impact on a global level these goals will only grow. The GM Foundation is funded entirely by its parent company, General Motors while also benefiting from employees who donate their time to events and causes sponsored by the foundation. While grant applications are not currently being accepted, in the foundation’s history, it opened applications for a specific time and then from those application selected the programs it would support. General Motors does not have a perfect history and has overcome many adversities, but through it all the GM Foundation managed to remain fit and generous. The organization celebrated its 40th birthday this year and hopes to make a positive influence for many years to come with its new course.

The General Motors Foundation

The General Motors (GM) Foundation was fashioned in 1976 by its parent company, General Motors, with a purpose to support and strengthen communities across the country. However, in the past year GM has decided to take the foundation in a new direction renaming it GM Philanthropy and Corporate Giving with the transition taking place at the end of the 2016 calendar year (Cain, 2016). The foundation focuses on donating money to projects in the areas of sustainability, STEM education, safety, and to teamGM Cares which is comprised of employees who volunteer in the communities where GM operates (General motors, 2016). “In the last decade alone, the GM Foundation has provided more than $261 million in grants to American charities, educational organizations and disaster relief efforts worldwide,” reports the foundation’s parent company, General Motors (General motors, 2016). All funding for the GM Foundation is provided by General Motors unless in cases where the foundation matches donations given by its employees.

After recently pushing the foundation to expand its philanthropic reach, General Motors named Jackie Parker as the director, global philanthropy and corporate giving who has the daily tasks of accepting grant applications, selecting which grants fall under the foundation’s purpose, and seeing through all projects that are taken on by the organization (Welch, 2015). Although the Foundation has seen great success in recent years, this has not always been the case. The organization’s ethics and mission were questioned during the company buyout, the recession and the ignition switch controversy. During the recession the organization was praised for its continued support of charities in its area, but as money became more scarce the GM Foundation turned a focus to a program called GM Volunteer PLUS which donated $250 to any organization at which an employee donated 50+ hours of his/her time (Smith, 2008). This program helped to reduce the pressure on the foundation to give large grants allowing it to make numerous smaller donations in its place.

As for any automotive manufacturer, a sensitive issue is a recall and when General Motors had its recent recall delay after a faulty ignition switch led to multiple deaths, the GM Foundation began vigorously publicizing awards from organizations which the foundation had previously made large monetary donations (Plus Media Solutions, 2015). This push raised the eyebrows of many business people, resulting in the National Legal and Policy Center’s request for a disclosure of all contributions given to charitable and nonprofit organizations by the General Motors Foundation in hopes to ensure that the company wasn’t using the PR campaign to receive awards illegally and unethically. Through economic low points and leadership transitions the GM Foundation has continued giving according to its mission, giving hope and support to many community members and organizations who otherwise may not be able to survive.

Sustainability

As climate and environmental issues become greater worries for many, General Motors is taking a proactive approach and investing in many programs to reduce the company’s impact on the planet. Aside from changes being made by GM to follow government regulations The GM Foundation crafted a plan with goals planned to be met by 2020 with the first goal being to reduce carbon intensity by twenty percent (General motors, 2016). This is a significant amount given the emissions that the company gives off on a daily basis from building, starting, and running cars. Another goal of its plan is to increase the amount of facilities that operate landfill-free from 122 to 150 (General motors, 2016). In the manufacturing industry one of the greatest challenges is reducing waste in each process performed and being a landfill-free facility would mean not only reducing waste but eliminating it. Finally, the foundation hopes to maintain and increase the 5,000 acres of wildlife that GM has around its facilities (General motors, 2016). Most of the company’s facilities lie on a great deal of land, all of which is a habitat for numerous animals. The GM Foundation recognizes the importance of maintaining if not improving the community that it serves and is doing just that through its various sustainability initiatives.

STEM Education

        Schools across the nation are taking additional steps to promote science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning. Taking advantage of opportunities provided by STEM programs, General Motors is working to inspire and create future innovators who could also be future employees for the company. The foundation has invested money to support these programs through its STEM initiatives, including the University Partner Program, Buick Achievers Scholarship, and FIRST (for inspiration and recognition of science and technology) (General motors, 2016). In May 2015, The GM Foundation donated $2 million to Kettering University through the University Partners Program to fund the “General Motors Foundation Automotive Research Area, an automotive proving ground on a piece of campus that is of historical significance to GM as the former site of the Chevrolet Division, or ‘Chevy in the Hole’. The proving ground will be built on a 19-acre parcel of land at the corner of Chevrolet Avenue and Bluff Street” (Kettering University, 2015). This was not the only educational gift that the General Motors Foundation gave that year, it also donated $500,000 to Karmanos Cancer Institute for Research which led to the naming of an entire laboratory floor the GM Foundation Cancer Research Floor forever documenting GM’s commitment to find cures for cancers (India Pharma News, 2015).