January 27th, 2020

While interning at ComEd this summer I was introduced to the Dollars for Doers program from the corporate relations team at their parent company, Exelon. This program finds a way to benefit the employees, corporation and the community. Dollars for Doers rewards the employees for their volunteer work by donating grants to non-profit organizations of the employee’s choice. It allows them to support a wide-range of causes and support all areas of the community. They gave 1.1 million dollars in 2018 to non-profit organizations that employees chose. That makes an impact in every corner of society and helps the causes employees felt passionate about. It incentivized me to volunteer while I was there and I’m so happy that I did because I was able to work with and learn about so many great causes. I worked with AIDS Run Walk Chicago, Chicagoland Military Roll Call, Feed My Starving Children and others which really educated me on causes I didn’t know much about before.

I received two grants, which I gave to Project Oz, an organization that helps homeless and runaway youth in the Bloomington-Normal area. Corporate social responsibility is a big deal at ComEd and Exelon, who have been trying to separate themselves from being just the electric company for awhile and this helps that. As a regulated utility, they have to show they are conscious of the environmental impacts they have so they will have so they offer plenty of volunteer events for employees to get hours for the Dollars for Doers program. They see that people view them as a company that just takes their money, so they try to give back in all of these different places to show they understand the impact they can make and that all causes matter.

It shows how ComEd cares about the communities that it serves and how they want to make a difference in lives. It also shows employees how they want to support them and the causes they hold dear. By rewarding employees for their work in the community by giving more back to the community, it makes the company look great to the benefit of all.

​By: Josh Pozniak