Local Communities

Whirlpool Corporation is committed to maintaining strong, lasting connections in the communities in which we do business.

We utilize a global collective impact model that centers around improving life at home. Our giving focuses in the areas of house and home to create thriving communities.

House. Our House initiatives focus on shelter and security for individuals and families as the first step in the journey toward a better life at home.

Home. Our Home initiatives focus on developing resilient, vibrant communities through education and community development.

One hundred percent of our operations participate in local community engagement activities such as annual United Way campaigns and volunteer opportunities within local communities. Many of our employees also serve on local nonprofit boards and volunteer on committees that conduct social impact assessments, including gender impact assessments. Our social impact programs are reported in detail on our website, our annual report, and in this sustainability report. We collaborate with community organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, United Way, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, and Red Cross.

whirlpool corporation
employees volunteered
400,312
hours in 2019,
supporting more than 500 organizations and benefiting 1,172,741 people around the globe.

Highlights

Habitat for Humanity

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Whirlpool Community Day Goes Global

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Raising Funds for Associazione CAF & United Way

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Care Counts Program Expands Nationally

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Instituto Consulado
da Mulher

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Moments Not to
Be Wasted

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Other Local Communities Highlights

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Launching FIRST® LEGO® League in
the U.K.

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Innovation at University of Michigan’s BLUElab

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Habitat for Humanity

In 2019, we celebrated 20 years of supporting Habitat for Humanity. To mark the occasion, Habitat and Whirlpool Corporation teamed up with Chef Roshara Sanders—who grew up in a Habitat home—to launch “Home Cooking with Love.” Keeping affordability and simplicity in mind, Chef Sanders presented two recipes at Habitat’s national conference. She also attended the Indiana University Habitat for Humanity build to share her story with student volunteers and show her appreciation. She offered our social media audience her favorite recipes at holiday times. To end a year of celebration, Chef Ro cooked lunch for employees while Jonathan Reckford, CEO of Habitat for Humanity, shared heartwarming stories of Habitat homeowners and volunteers.

CELEBRATING
20 YEARS
OF SUPPORTING
HABITAT FOR HUMANITY

Whirlpool Community Day Goes Global

In 2019, we celebrated the third Whirlpool Community Day with employees dedicating a full work day to volunteering for nonprofit organizations. The initiative started in Italy and was globally adopted in 2019 with employees in 15 countries working with 32 nonprofit organizations for more than 21,000 hours spent in community service. Whirlpool Community Day gives us the opportunity to celebrate the pride we have for the communities where we work and live.

Raising funds for Associazione CAF

The Milano Relay Marathon is an opportunity to raise funds for Associazione CAF—an organization whose mission is to provide support and care for kids and young people who have been removed from their families due to violence or neglect. In 2019, over 80 Whirlpool Corporation EMEA employees participated in the marathon, with the funds raised used by Associazione CAF to buy a bus to transport kids from their communities to schools and afternoon activities. Whirlpool Corporation employees also raised an additional 10,000 euros to support the organization.

United Way

Our current and retired U.S. employees participate every year in raising funds for local United Way campaigns in their respective locations. The Whirlpool Foundation offers a dollar-for-dollar match on contributions made to these campaigns. In 2019, with matched funding from the Whirlpool Foundation, employee, and retiree giving was more than $4.5 million. Our Chairman and CEO, Marc Bitzer, joined United Way Worldwide’s Board of Trustees in 2019.

Care Counts program expands nationally

According to teachers in the U.S., 1 in 5 students lack access to clean clothes1. The stigma and shame of not having clean clothes can lead students to miss school, and students who miss school are seven times more likely to drop out. The Care Counts laundry program by Whirlpool brand is committed to helping remove one small but important barrier to attendance—access to clean clothes—by installing washers and dryers in schools in the U.S. Now in its fifth year, the Care Counts laundry program has grown to support students in need across 18 cities and 82 schools around the country, providing access to clean clothes for more than 38,000 students.

In 2019, Whirlpool brand launched a program in the U.S. offering a limited number of laundry pairs to qualifying elementary schools. This expansion will allow Whirlpool Corporation to scale Care Counts more quickly moving forward, with expectations to enroll an additional 100 schools in 2020. To complement the launch of the expansion program, we hosted events in Chicago and New York where researchers, educators, and others learned about the Care Counts laundry program and its impact to date. Attendees were able to participate by assembling Care Kits of laundry supplies that were then donated to participating schools.

  1. Based on a survey conducted by phone within the United States by Braun Research from April 25 – May 8, 2019 among 600 public school teachers (18 years or older).

Instituto Consulado da Mulher

Since 2002, Whirlpool Corporation has supported the Instituto Consulado da Mulher, which works to improve and empower the lives of socially vulnerable women, eradicate poverty, and promote gender equality in Brazil. With our support Consulado da Mulher is:

  • Developing the entrepreneurial and employment skills of low-income women, supporting their business path to a steady income.
  • Preparing transgender women for the job market and to start their own businesses, while also teaching them about their basic rights.
  • Supporting a network of women entrepreneurs to supply snacks to local businesses. In 2019, all of Whirlpool Corporation’s sites in Brazil installed on-site cafeterias run by these local businesses to provide food and beverages to our employees.

Moments not to be Wasted

For the sixth National Day Against Food Waste, Whirlpool Corporation EMEA launched the third edition of Moments not to be Wasted in 2019, a project that aims to contribute to the fight against food waste through a captivating educational and informative project in schools. We participated in Zero Waste, a European awareness campaign for sustainable consumption conceived by Last Minute Market in partnership with the Italian Ministry of Environment. Participation almost doubled from 2018 with more than 1 million people, including students, teachers, and families from more than 1,600 primary schools from Italy, Poland, and Slovakia taking part in this edition. To make participation in the project even more effective and stimulating, the students were involved in an educational contest in which they expressed their ideas on sustainability through photos, videos, and drawings. As part of the initiative, Whirlpool Corporation EMEA also made a donation to Banco Alimentare to support the organization’s projects concerning the collection and redistribution of food surplus to charitable organizations.

Youth Innovation Challenge

We hosted 100 high school students from schools surrounding our corporate headquarters for the Youth Innovation Challenge, where students were tasked with identifying an unmet consumer need, finding a solution, and determining how to market and sell their solution. Whirlpool Corporation employees acted as both mentors during the ideation process and judges for the final presentation of the idea and prototype. The challenge exposed students to a variety of business functions and helped grow their problem-solving skills.

Boys & Girls Clubs of America

Since 2010, we have teamed up with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America to build great futures for youth. Almost 6,000 Whirlpool Corporation employees volunteer their time at various Clubs across the U.S. each year. Whirlpool Corporation employees and local Clubs come together for games and team-building activities during the Club’s annual Day of Dependability event. In 2019, a Whirlpool Corporation catering team and other employee volunteers served a Thanksgiving meal to 170 Boys & Girls Clubs members for the event.

FXB India Suraksha

Since 2015, our teams in Pondicherry, India, have developed community projects in partnership with nonprofit FXB India Suraksha focused on improving structures in rural schools located near Whirlpool Corporation factories. Some of the programs implemented include Life Skill Education software, yoga classes, and sport activities that aim to improve the educational conditions and lives of more than 750 children in five schools.

Launching FIRST® LEGO® League in the U.K.

The Peterborough, U.K. Whirlpool Corporation team hosted an event to launch the FIRST® LEGO® League tournament for schools in the local area. The initiative was in response to the global science and technology challenge FIRST® LEGO® League, in which over 310,000 young people (in 38,800 teams), from across 100 countries came together to develop their STEM skills. FIRST® LEGO® League helps students engage in their education and nurture important teamwork, problem-solving and life skills. The 2019 theme, CITY SHAPER, was based on architecture and the spaces that we live in. For the Innovation Project, teams were invited to explore issues such as transportation, accessibility, and natural disasters, answering the question: How can we shape a better future for everyone?

Innovation at University of Michigan’s BLUElab

For many years, Whirlpool Corporation has sponsored projects through BLUElab—Better Living Using Engineering Laboratory—at the University of Michigan, which creates multidisciplinary teams to build sustainable solutions for local and international needs. Currently, BLUElab has 10 project teams comprised of approximately 300 total students. One Whirlpool-supported project aims to ease the water transport process in rural India. Women typically travel several kilometers to the nearest water source carrying water pots weighing up to 30 pounds on their heads. The team designed a cart to transport water that would help mitigate back pain and shoulder issues for these women. Further, Whirlpool Corporation’s financial support allowed the team to build a prototype and implement it in a community. Another BLUElab team supported by Whirlpool Corporation designed a sewer system to decrease flooding during the rainy season in Thailand. The existing sewer systems in Northern Thailand route rainwater to rivers, but when the water level gets high there is significant flooding. BLUElab partnered with Chiang Mai University to build a prototype that includes a catch basin and systems to remove sediment from the sewers resulting from these floods.