New SCN Community Social Responsibility Initiative for 2011

[Former Member]

SAP and WFP Alliance Creates New Initiative to Fight Hunger

We are very excited to launch a new SAP Community Network initiative for 2011, the next generation of SAP’s partnership with the UN World Food Programme (WFP), the world's largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide, and feeding more than 20 million people every year.

SAP and the WFP will partner to not only feed the impoverished, but to help resolve the underlying issues behind poverty and hunger.  The partnership between SAP and WFP will help develop methods to cultivate and maintain food security; not only by providing food to communities in need, but working closely to teach those communities how to grow and sell food, so they can become self-sufficient. 

The SAP Community Network members work hard to be recognized as top global contributors.  With this program, just by actively participating in our SAP communities, you are making a difference.  You’re helping to feed, educate and build villages in countries such as Laos, Rwanda, Sudan, and others.

How it Works

Every time you contribute to SDN, BPX, the Business Analytics Community, or University Alliance Community - through a blog, article, tutorial, video, or forum post - you'll help increase the total donation that SAP will make to the Food for Education Program.  Donations will directly fund an international school nutrition program that aims to ensure every hungry child has at least one meal every day, enabling him or her to learn and thrive in school.

SAP has committed a minimum contribution of €100,000 in 2011. By sharing your knowledge with other SDN and BPX community members, you can increase our donation. When the community reaches a total of 2.3 million points for 2011, SAP will increase the donation to €150,000 to the World Food Programme. 

The more you contribute your knowledge, the more SAP contributes to the WFP program. You can help max out the donation to the U.N. Food for Education Program by sharing your expertise and experiences on SDN and BPX.  Here’s how. 

What is the Food for Education Program?

WFP's Food for Education Program (also known as Food for Work) pays workers with food to start building a hunger-free future for their communities…in countries like…

Providing food in exchange for work makes it possible for the poor and hungry to devote time and energy to taking the first steps out of the hunger trap.  This is the goal of WFP's projects globally…

Local community members are given food in exchange for work on vital new infrastructure or for time spent learning new skills that will increase the food security of households or communities. 

These projects include:

• Irrigation, terracing, soil and water conservation. In countries where drought regularly causes food shortages, irrigation can boost crop yields by 100-400%.
• In war-torn countries, WFP offers food assistance as an incentive for ex-combatants to abandon weapons and learn new skills, which are vital to smooth their path back into society.
• Poverty often forces farmers to overuse soil and grazing land. The result is barren land and accelerating desertification. WFP provides food rations to farmers who practice soil conservation by planting trees.
• To help communities develop, WFP sometimes helps people in villages to build new schools. They receive food, so they can devote time to the building work without worrying about losing income.
• WFP helps people set up home gardening businesses by providing food assistance as they train. This means they have a livelihood with which to support themselves.

For more information about WFP, just click on the following:

• Get Involved - Join
• Ways to Help
• WFP Project Videos
• WFP Photo Gallery
• Make a Difference – Fill the Cup!

SAP’s Engagement

At SAP, Sustainability is core to our vision of making the world run better.  In a better run world, IT helps companies operate more profitably and more sustainably; IT leaders become sustainability leaders and IT drives economic opportunity for all.  In a better run world, we believe that IT will be a primary driver of opportunity for all people.  SAP has developed a website showing ways in which SAP is helping drive opportunity for all. 

As part of our commitment to Social Sustainability, SAP is focused on developing the next generation of business leaders and innovators.   Through our social investments, partnerships, employee volunteering and social innovation projects:

• SAP helps increase access to and quality of education as well as the retention of children in primary schools.
• SAP helps build entrepreneurial, IT, and business leadership skills needed to succeed in the knowledge economy.
• SAP is increasing the number of people in the global workforce and building future leaders and innovators.
• For more on SAP’s Sustainability initiatives please see our new 2010 Sustainability Report at http://www.sapsustainabilityreport.com/ 

What’s Next?

We are gaining tremendous momentum!  In the coming months, we will launch several new projects to build on the foundation of the WFP initiative:

• New Non-profit Community Site.  SAP is creating a new community site on SCN for our non-profit partners. This will be a one-stop-shop for organizations receiving SAP technology donations to understand how to use our technology to improve operations, measure impact and demonstrate value to the community.

• Non-profit Challenges at InnoJam Events. SAP InnoJam events are exciting challenging events where teams compete to solve real-world problems.  In upcoming months, we will target InnoJam events to solve challenges for non-profit organizations around the world.  The event launch is currently in the planning stages.

• Community Participation. Over the coming months, we will announce programs to allow SAP Community Network members to directly contribute their time, energy, creativity, and passion to micro-volunteering opportunities.

Making Bigger Strides…

We encourage you to join the fight to prevent hunger by contributing to the SAP Community Network, and be a part of a larger SAP initiative. Our alliance with WFP will strengthen the outreach and efforts to resolve the issues behind poverty and hunger.

SAP’s goal is to provide these communities with all of the necessary tools and support to be self-sufficient, and as a result, our core vision of creating a better run world will have come to fruition.

To join the ranks of our most active contributors and help the community reach our goal, visit the SCN how to contribute page and start contributing.

Join us!