Our corporate partner Samsung Austin Semiconductor was nominated for the “Outstanding Philanthropic Large Organization” award from the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) this year. The company will be honored for this achievement at the Philanthropy Day awards ceremony on February 4th, 2016.
Samsung Austin Semiconductor’s General Counsel and Senior Director of Public Affairs, Catherine Morse, who also serves as UWATX Board Chair, spoke to us about the accomplishment and how Samsung’s long-term investment in UWATX played a large part in the company being recognized for this award.
“We feel good about this award because we have a focused philanthropic effort on early childhood education, youth development, STEM education and environmental sustainability,” Morse said. “By far, our largest partner for the past five years has been United Way.”
Samsung was nominated for this award by UWATX, Open Door Preschools and Breakthrough Austin. In 2010, Samsung Austin Semiconductor made a $1 million donation to our Success By 6 program. Since then, more than 200 families have benefitted from the program and numerous high-quality preschool programs have been opened as a result.
“As a community investor, we really want to focus on evidence based-programming and that’s what sets United Way apart from other nonprofits. UWATX is a good steward of Samsung’s dollars because they measure outcomes of programs and hold other nonprofits accountable for the work they do. It doesn’t make much sense to invest in things that just ‘feel good,’ but things that work and result in better outcomes for the community. United Way serves as the key backbone of this community, and I’m proud to serve as board chair.”
About 5,000 employees work at the Austin location. The factory is located in the Manor school district, so Samsung Austin specifically invests in the Manor community where many students are economically disadvantaged, and more low-income families are moving to this area every day due to the rising costs of living in Austin’s city limits.
Additionally, another one of our valued partners, BuildASign.com, will be honored as the “Outstanding Philanthropic Small or Medium Corporation” by the AFP.
Learn more about the effects Samsung Austin Semiconductor’s $1 million investment has made since 2010 in this recent article by Community Impact.