People
Values on display: 34,000 employee volunteer hours
Volunteerism is a core value at Land O'Lakes -- here's how that culture was cultivated
More than 34,000. That’s the number of hours Land O’Lakes employees volunteered in 2023 – a time commitment valued at over $1 million. In the same year, Land O’Lakes, our employees, member-owners and the Land O’Lakes Foundation contributed a total of $9.9 million to nonprofit organizations across our national footprint.
These numbers only scratch the surface of how the spirit of giving is ingrained in our cooperative model and workplace culture. Our employees raise the bar on giving back to the communities in which they work and live each year.
“Volunteering isn’t just something we encourage—it's embedded in our cooperative’s DNA,” Sheilah Stewart, SVP and general counsel, says. “When we give of our time, whether as an employee or member-owner, we strengthen the places we call home.”
Leah McKeon, senior community relations specialist, says there are two official channels that the Land O’Lakes Community Relations team uses to foster volunteerism. The first is the Dollars for Doers program, which matches individual employee volunteer hours with cash grants for nonprofits. For every five hours of volunteerism, an employee gets $50 to donate, with a cap of $1,000 per calendar year. Whenever an employee logs volunteer hours in Land O’Lakes’ employee giving website, LOLgives, they can decide which 501c3 nonprofit organization receives that money.
From January through August, the Community Relations team has sent out $45,000 to organizations through Dollars for Doers, which means employees have logged at least 4,500 individual volunteer hours in that time. When factoring in team-led volunteer projects, the total employee volunteerism donation so far this year is closer to 20,000 hours.
Land O'Lakes volunteers at a food drive.
A group of Land O'Lakes volunteers.
“I approve all of the Dollars for Doers hours, and one of my favorite parts is hearing from each of the employees who share their stories about their volunteerism,” Leah says. “I’m always so astounded at how much people want to volunteer their time and effort.”
Eben LeBerthon, a forecast planner for Land O’Lakes Animal Nutrition business, says programs such as Dollars for Doers have helped empower employees to volunteer and have supercharged the giving culture throughout the enterprise.
“The way we show up in those communities, our communities, is so important,” Eben says. “It’s not a question of ‘how will you get out in the community’ anymore. It’s a question of ‘why wouldn’t you?’”
The second way employees can get involved is through team grants. Any group of three or more employees that volunteers 30 or more collective hours will earn a $500 gift for a nonprofit of their choice.
Jeremy Dumond, senior director of insights and analytics for Land O’Lakes’ Dairy Foods business, says those programs offered by the Community Relations team provide a tangible representation of the giving culture that it strives to create.
“Our identity is rooted in the cooperative model, and that means we help lift others up in times of need,” Jeremy says. “That emanates from the Executive Leadership Team down through the organization. Whatever is meaningful to you, Community Relations is able to put money toward that. That’s something anybody can take advantage of.”
Catherine Kenevan, a senior accountant in Dairy Foods, says that she has seen first-hand that top-down support from her managers in encouraging her volunteerism. She says she’s never run into an issue when asking for time to help run employee resource group events, like the Aging Successfully group she’s a part of, or when trying to participate in volunteer activities.
And when Catherine says from the top down, she means it. People at all levels of the organization, including the Executive Leadership Team, take advantage of the support the enterprise provides for employee volunteerism.
Heather Malenshek, chief marketing officer, currently volunteers at Hunkapi, an equine therapy farm in Scottsdale, Arizona, but says she’s volunteered somewhere for essentially all her adult life. She says it’s important for people, especially higher up in the organization, to set a good example for their teams and for the enterprise as a whole.
“Everybody looks to their leader to see what they’re doing, and it also gives a team permission to say ‘hey, I should be taking time to volunteer,’” Heather says. “It shows that this company is really committed when its executives are walking the walk.”
No matter where you look across the organization, Land O'Lakes employees and members are doing what they can to give back to the communities we all call home. And that is only just the start.
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