Corporate
Giving Back by ‘Sleeping Out’
11/22/2019
by Jamal Haughton, Sr. Vice President and General Counsel at Samsung Electronics America
When I joined Samsung 4 years ago, I was immediately impressed with how dedicated Samsung is to giving back. In fact, one of our core values is co-prosperity—the importance of enabling people to achieve their full potential is truly engrained in our culture.
For an organization that thrives off speed and innovation, we pause operations each year for our Day of Service. In addition, we offer employee giving programs where we encourage our people to take Volunteer Time Off, support donations through our Matching Gift program or award charities nominated by our employees through the Community Impact Grant program.
But here at Samsung these programs are more than just options for employees, the importance of giving back is modeled by our senior leaders who dedicate their time and energy to contribute to non-profit boards and passion projects that benefit our local communities.
Last year, when a small group of leaders participated in Covenant House New Jersey’s Executive Sleep Out, I was happy to be part of the team—until of course, the unexpected winter storm brought brutally cold temperatures and bone chilling wind to the area. But as we heard the reports of traffic jams all across the area, Covenant House decided the event would go on as planned because homeless youth face all types of weather, from the icy snow of winter to the humid summer heat waves. That message stuck with me as I rallied the team to head to Newark. And with nothing but a cardboard box and a sleeping bag, I slept out to raise awareness for this worthy cause.
Our experience quickly became infamous throughout the organization. Everyone in the tristate area remembers where they were stuck that night and while most would think that our experience would scare away potential participants, I am so proud to say that Team Samsung was back and bigger this year!
The reality is our one night of sleeping outside in the freezing cold is what more than 4 million young people in the U.S. struggle with every single day. That’s why I committed to sleeping out again this year, to raise much needed awareness and funding that will help combat youth homelessness. And I was honored to share this experience with a larger group of Samsung Executives, including our CEO, our CFO and senior leaders from all across the organization—Corporate Affairs to Compliance, Marketing to Human Resources.