Since our earliest days, philanthropy has been part of the fabric of the Xerox culture. We invest our money, time and talent in our areas of focus: education and workforce preparedness, science and technology, employee and community affairs, sustainability and environmental affairs, national and cultural affairs, and matching gifts and memberships. In 2008, the Xerox Foundation, the arm of the corporation that manages our philanthropic efforts, invested more than $12.6 million in 2,825 organizations. That was up slightly over 2007.

Areas of Focus

Education and Workforce Preparedness
Xerox invested 17.9% of our grants in education and workforce preparedness. A new initiative for Xerox in 2008 was a $250,000 grant payable over two years to Concern Worldwide, a 40-year old organization that provides job training and micro financing to the “poorest of the poor” in some 30 countries – primarily Africa. The Xerox investment will be for an “innovation fund” that provides seed money for pilot programs with high-leverage possibilities.

At the other end of the education spectrum, we continued the Xerox Fellowship Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Over a three-year period, $1 million is being invested to provide fellowships to exceptional doctoral students in engineering.

We also continued to manage three programs with a common theme – providing educational access to underrepresented minorities:

• Our Black College Engineering Liaison Program provided 18 grants during 2008 to schools such as North Carolina A&T, Howard University, Spelman College and Morgan State University.
• Our Hispanic College Liaison Program provided 24 grants during 2008 to schools such as California Polytech, the University of Texas, the University of Puerto Rico, California State Polytechnic and the City College of New York.
• Our Xerox Technical Minority Scholarship Program provided 122 scholarships to help deserving minority students complete degrees in engineering.

All of these programs are part of a larger Xerox Foundation effort to help minorities pursue technical degrees and help the United States address its shortage of scientists and engineers. These programs, which are in the strategic interest of the company, provide excellent opportunities for Xerox people to be involved on campus and enable us to recruit from a highly motivated and talented pool of technical people. We invested $880,000 in these three programs in 2008.

Other investments in the focus area of education and workforce preparedness included Teach for America, Prep for Prep, the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, Monroe Community College, United Negro College Fund, Posse Foundation, Hispanic Scholarship Fund and INROADS. The Xerox Foundation also awarded 38 National Merit Scholarships and Achievement Awards.

Science and Technology
The Foundation invested 16% of our grants in the area of science and technology. Organizations supported by the Foundation included the Cleveland Clinic, FIRST, New York Hall of Science, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Rochester and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Included in the science and technology program area is funding of the Xerox University Affairs Committee. The committee – which consists of about a dozen Xerox scientists from around the world – made 41 grants to 36 university science programs. The Foundation provided approximately $811,000 to this effort.

Each grant is championed by a Xerox scientist from the United States, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Spain or Germany. Universities outside the United States received 10 grants. All 36 universities are conducting research aligned with the long-term strategic interests of Xerox. In 2008, Xerox hired two graduate students as a result of the program and hosted 9 interns. In addition, Xerox scientists, and the professors we funded, co-authored and published 23 research papers in leading academic journals, made 22 visits to universities both inside and outside the U.S and hosted 11 universities at Xerox.

Environmental Affairs
The Foundation made 3.2% of our investments in the new category of environmental affairs, which is anchored by a $1 million grant payable over three years to The Nature Conservancy. The grant is aimed at efforts to advance sustainable forest management. The Nature Conservancy is working to identify and incorporate biodiversity components into the forestry standards by which our paper suppliers are certified, and provide data and tools to enable paper suppliers to simultaneously meet their business objectives and do the right thing.

Other investments in this focus area include: Outward Bound, which teaches respect for the environment to young people, the Mill River Collaborative in Stamford, Conn., The Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk, Conn., SUNY College of Environment and Forestry, SoundWaters, Penn State’s Department of Environmental Engineering, the Central Park Conservancy and many other organizations and institutions that work toward the goal of a sustainable world.