Christmas cards

This innovative joint venture between our California and Nottingham offices, invited seven schools local to these offices to create a global corporate Christmas card to send to our clients and suppliers. Our people in the UK and the USA selected the winning designs (12 in total – one from each of the schools in the UK and six from the USA school) and the cards were then professionally produced to a total of 40,000. A sum per card was donated to the global children’s charity International Save the Children. The children that designed the top three most popular pictures from each school were presented with a framed copy of their design and a book token. The winning designers were presented with their cards in a frame with the original artwork.

Location: Nottingham, UK and Costa Mesa, US
Financial donation: $14,800
Community benefits: The children who participated received encouragement and recognition for their work, and enjoyed the chance to design a card that would be produced in huge numbers and sent around the Globe. The project also raised a donation for Save the Children. But perhaps the most significant benefit was the new relationships fostered between the schools which has led to the innovative e-pals project.

Adopted schools UK

Experian works with six local schools to offer a range of volunteering activities; reading, gardening, painting, e-mentoring and work experience, and delivering business skills courses to pupils taking part in Young Enterprise and the Industrial Trust programmes. Our people get involved, spending time in the schools working with the students. Other employees act as student mentors via a safe and secure email system (e-volve). The project is also supported by financial donations to provide educational trips and projects at each school.

Location: Nottingham, UK
Financial donation: $15,000
Community benefits: Mentoring and support to local schools can make a huge difference to their effectiveness, and really transform the lives of young people. Our volunteers last year spent over 600 hours reading with the six schools, which is rewarding for them but a real boost to the confidence of the students and a real help to busy teachers.

Adopted schools US

By partnering with a school across the street from its corporate headquarter location in Costa Mesa, CA, Experian Americas is able to strengthen its ties within the community, and play an active role in educating young people Experian collaborates with the Santa Ana School District to provide the students at Taft Elementary with educational field trip opportunities, mentoring partnerships and semester achievement awards. Each year, Experian employees have the chance to interact directly with the students at Taft through our Junior Achievement Day.

Location: Costa Mesa, CA
Financial donation: $3,000
Community benefits: Mentoring and support to local schools can make a huge difference to their effectiveness, and really transform the lives of young people.

e-Pals

The students in the six UK and one US schools who designed our corporate Christmas card, were keen to make a direct connection with each other. We selected classes of matching ages, and set up the e-volve email system that we also use for our e-mentoring project with another of our Nottingham adopted schools. Students are now in touch with electronic pen-pals across the Atlantic Ocean, via a secure system that allows the teachers and the project manager to access the student’s emails to ensure the content is safe and appropriate.

Location: Nottingham, UK and Costa Mesa, US
Financial donation: None
Community benefits: The e-pals correspondence between the students will relate directly to educational work that each school is doing with the aim being to learn from each other and begin a lasting relationship between the schools. This programme is proving very popular and has plans for expansion next year.

The Experian Robin Hood Festival of Running

Experian supports one of the most important marathon races in the UK, attracting a field of 13,000 runners. Staging the event involves over 1,000 Experian people every year, either running or helping as course marshals or drink station volunteers. We also provide our Mosaic software to help with race planning and promotion. Young runners take part in the 2.5 mile Don Scott Mini Marathon, and Experian supports this strongly, promoting the event to Nottingham schools, subsidising runners’ entry fees and organising an annual designer competition for the official race t-shirt.

Location: Nottingham, UK
Financial donation: $132,000
Community benefits: This is the largest participation sporting event in the East Midlands with over 13,000 runners, promoting fitness and activity, particularly among young people. A further $136,000 is raised for charity by runners taking part in the event.

Take 5ive

The Take 5ive project has created a series of short films with ten primary schools from inner city Nottingham. The project worked with school councils to identify the “five” best aspects of their school and the “five” things they would change to make them even better. The films aim to give inspiration, meaning and motivation to decision makers and service providers to make real changes in policy and environment to improve the lives of local children, families and staff. A number of local authorities across England are adopting the United Nations Conventions of the Rights of the Child in shaping their services. Mosaic has been given as in kind support and is being used to locate similar inner city areas across the UK to encourage other forums to empower children to make changes in their local areas.

Location: Nottingham
Financial donation: $22,000
Community benefits: The 12 films were premiered in front of an influential audience at Nottingham’s independent cinema and celebrated the children’s achievement. Following this screening, the children’s ideas for change were listened to and will be actioned.

Junior Achievement

Experian formed a collaborative partnership with Junior Achievement Orange County. The organization provides a unique opportunity for Experian employees to work hands on with educational standards and the curriculum. Experian JA Days, held annually in Orange County, CA, challenge Experian employees to teach an elementary school class for a day, directly involving the company’s employees in the teaching process.

Location: Orange County, CA
Financial donation: $10,000
Community benefits: Experian is able to provide direct support to the education curriculum, and the students benefit from experienced employees bringing a new perspective into the classroom. The programme fosters a sense of community and mentorship through the employees, and gives them greater perspectives into the community and school environments. This programme also fosters Experian’s business goals, as Junior Achievement specifically focuses on business and economic education.

University ethics programme

Experian made a $10,000 donation to Northern Illinois University in support of a new ethics programme. The specific initiative we are sponsoring is called the Belief initiative focused upon making good corporate governance and social responsibility part of business as usual. It is really an approach in integrating ethics into its curriculum. Two Experian employees attended the Northern Illinois University College of Business initial Ethics Day event, and one participated as a panellist for the 2nd year MBA students explaining how Experian incorporates governance into its business processes.

Location: Illinois, US
Financial donation: $10,000
Community benefits: This Programme makes an important contribution to the education of future business leaders, building in the importance of ethics and governance right at the start of their careers.

Experian Americas Internal Volunteer Donation Programmes

Experian Americas continues to support a number of volunteer activities and community organizations through the internal volunteer donation programmes - Service Makes Cents and Change For Change. In Service Makes Cents (FY07), Experian made a $200 donation to the respective organization for every 50 volunteer hours that an employee served. For the Change For Change programme, Experian made a $200 donation in support of a particular event or volunteer date in which an employee participated – walks, runs, bake sales, food drives, etc.

Location: Across the US
Financial donation: $23,200
Community benefits: These simple ideas provide an additional incentive for employees to get involved in local community groups, widening the pool of volunteers and – ultimately – giving a handy financial sum to the charity. Through volunteering projects, the Heart of Experian empowers employees to take an active role in the surrounding neighbourhoods, strengthening ties to the community and building a variety of dedicated relationships. Employees often learn new skills and hone team-building practices while contributing to the social well-being of the community at large.