Vanguard in the community
Feeding the year-round need for healthy food
May 18, 2022
Food insecurity is a global, year-round crisis. Yet most large-scale food drives take place around the year-end holiday season. Vanguard’s annual All Cans on Deck (ACOD) employee giving campaign is different by design. ACOD helps local hunger relief agencies replenish their shelves with healthy foods at a critical time of year, when their inventory is running low.
Donations to our 2022 ACOD campaign—held in late April in the United States, Europe, Canada, Mexico, and Australia—will provide an estimated 2,090,354 nutritious meals for members of our communities, exceeding our goal of 1.7 million meals.
“While I was optimistic that we would meet our campaign goals, even considering all of the things that are going on right now, I never expected we would smash our goals like we did,” said Jim Kearney, a principal in Vanguard’s Global Investment Operations group and executive sponsor of the campaign.
Evolving to better serve our communities
Since ACOD’s launch in 1996, we’ve changed our approach from collecting physical items, such as canned and other nonperishable goods, to collecting monetary donations from our crew, which are boosted by Vanguard’s 50% match. We’ve learned that direct funding is the most efficient, cost-effective way to help our hunger relief partners.
The agencies leverage their buying power with local farmers and suppliers to purchase perishable items such as produce, meat, and milk as needed. They’re also able to buy bulk items for their pantries at wholesale prices, obtaining several times more food than our crew could buy at their local stores at retail prices.
In addition to providing monetary support, crew volunteers in Pennsylvania and Arizona grow fresh produce for local agency partners in on-site gardens and at home through our Homegrown Heroes program.
This year, Vanguard crew also were able to donate to a special pooled funding option benefitting several agencies that work on the ground to nourish people facing the toughest of times around the world, including in Ukraine.
All Cans on Deck is just one of many ways Vanguard responds to humanitarian challenges and works to strengthen our communities. Read more about our approach to philanthropy and volunteerism.
