Campbell’s shows how workplace volunteering can drive community impact

Campbell’s landed on Points of Light’s 2026 Civic 50 list on June 23 in Washington, D.C., with a workforce that logged 27.7K volunteer service hours in fiscal 2025. The company also lets employees receive up to $1,500 in matching gifts each year, turning volunteering into a benefit that can be repeated, measured and promoted inside the workplace.

Points of Light said the Civic 50 was in its 14th year and remains the nation’s premier corporate social impact recognition program. The 2026 honorees together contributed more than $1 billion in resources and mobilized over 370,000 employees to serve communities. Jennifer Sirangelo said Campbell’s demonstrates how to “embed purpose into the employee experience and use business as a force for good,” a description that fits a company treating community work as part of employee life rather than as a one-off campaign.

That structure matters for food-recovery organizations that depend on steady corporate partners, not just seasonal giving. The Campbell’s Foundation said it awarded $920,000 in Community Impact Grants to 46 nonprofit organizations in April 2025, bringing fiscal 2025 grantmaking to more than $2.6 million. Since 1953, the foundation has backed food access, healthy living and neighborhood strengthening, and Campbell’s says its employee-giving program also includes volunteer grants and crowdsourcing alongside matching gifts.

Campbell’s signature Full Futures commitment shows how the company ties those pieces together. Launched in 2021 as a five-year, $5 million effort, the program started in Camden, New Jersey, expanded to Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2023 and to Hanover, Pennsylvania, in 2024. Alliance for a Healthier Generation said Full Futures had grown to three sites and is aimed at improving school nutrition environments, a reminder that the company is using its workplace and philanthropy channels to reinforce the same community message.

For A Simple Gesture, which was founded in 2015 and now operates with more than 60 chapters, that kind of repeatable corporate relationship is the model worth watching. The nonprofit says it has provided more than 7 million meals, and its Guilford County operation rescues edible food from businesses and delivers it to local nonprofits. A partner that sends volunteers, matching dollars and ongoing attention can do more than fill one pantry shift. It can keep routes full, deepen pantry ties and make food access part of a company’s identity, not just its charity calendar.