Nestle Purina Corporate Teams Focus on Building a Better St. Louis

If one company in St. Louis takes social responsibility seriously, it’s Nestle Purina Petcare. More than 50 percent of its community giving has nothing to do with pets, and everything to do with helping underserved people in need. Nestle’s corporate teams have a 100-year history building a better St. Louis – significantly with the underserved neighborhood outside Nestle’s U.S. headquarters.

Nestle is the backbone of the Near Southside Neighborhood Coalition, a group of social services agencies, schools and churches involved in facilitating jobs, training and education in St Louis.

Nestle does not toot its horn when it comes to serving community, locally or globally. It also does not promote itself on the coalition’s website. The company hires Venture Up regularly for team building events, including bike building for kids at the Kingdom House and Boys & Girls Club in St. Louis. Never has Nestle invited the press to their team building activities with Venture Up.

Social responsibility has long been a part of Nestle, and is at the core of the company’s corporate culture. Research shows employee retention is higher with companies with strong CSR programs. Nestle has no trouble gaining and retaining top talent. So, it is no surprise that Nestle Purina Petcare consistently ranks among the best places to work, including on Glassdoor.com’s 2015 list where it ranks third in the nation.

Nestle Purina Healthcare focuses on Creating Shared Value, an approach to business where value can best be created for both society and shareholders. Nestle is on the forefront of this approach, also embraced by GE, Google, IBM, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Unilever and Wal-Mart.

A Harvard Business Review article titled, Creating Shared Value, by Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer, states that businesses acting as businesses, not as charitable donors, are a powerful force. “Capitalism is an unparalleled vehicle for meeting human needs, improving efficiency, creating jobs and building wealth.”

Even Nestle’s annual PetCare Pride Day, held at its facilities across the globe, is not just about pets. It’s a day of community service for humans too. In St. Louis, corporate team members logged 3,000 volunteer hours for social service groups. Recent Pride Day volunteers worked at the following organizations:

• United Cerebral Palsy of Northwest Missouri – St. Joseph PetCare teams worked with adults facilitating education programs in academics, arts and computer skills.
• Second Harvest Food Bank – St. Louis PetCare teams sorted food in the warehouse, planted seeds in the onsite garden, and collected items for food drive.
• St. Louis Children’s Hospitals – Corporate teams in St. Louis created 150 Fleece Blankets to donate to the area’s children’s hospitals.
• St. Louis Homeless Shelters – St. Louis staff prepared 6,000 meals and 1,000 toiletry items; and helped renovate the men’s homeless shelter.

Nestle is part of Swiss-based Nestlé S.A., the world’s leading nutrition, health and wellness company.