Wendel’s commitment to civil society is part of the Group’s DNA. Indeed, history has shown that Wendel has been involved in helping resolve social issues.
In the 19th century, for example, Joséphine de Wendel, widow of François de Wendel, petitioned for the creation of a number of social services, unprecedented at the time. They included free care for the wounded and sick, food and basic necessities, and assistance with access to housing.
Wendel now perpetuates these charitable actions through sponsorship projects via Wendel Cares, in order to professionalize the Group’s approach, which was previously steered by a Philanthropy Committee.
In early 2022, Wendel officially launched its initiative called Wendel Cares. With Wendel Cares, Wendel wishes to give new impetus to its philanthropic approach by bringing together all of its philanthropic actions within a dedicated structure and by extending its scope of action to other themes in line with the societal challenges of our time.
Historically, Wendel’s corporate philanthropy activities have been developed around two pillars: education and culture, through long-term partnerships with the Wendel Center for Family Enterprise (Insead) since 1996 and the Centre Pompidou-Metz since 2010. Since 2018, Wendel has extended its corporate philanthropy activities to solidarity projects.
Today, Wendel Cares aims to finance initiatives corresponding to one of the five areas in which it has chosen to commit itself.
The creation of Wendel Cares also represents a collaborative project for employees that will allow them to devote time, raise funds and rally around common projects.
Wendel Cares will continue Wendel’s “historical” philanthropic activities by supporting:
And three new pillars have now been added:
Since its creation in 2010, Wendel has been a constant supporter of the Centre Pompidou-Metz, and as such is a founding sponsor of the Centre. Through this partnership, Wendel wanted to provide long-term support for a flagship project for Lorraine, the birthplace of the Group and its founding families.
Wendel has supported education since 1996 through its partnership with Insead, an internationally renowned business school. The Group first encouraged the creation of a university chair dedicated to family enterprise, and then, in response to the success of this chair, the Wendel International Center dedicated to the study and research of family enterprise was created.
Since 2018, Wendel has extended its scope of action to include solidarity. In this approach, the Group’s employees were asked to present the associations in which they are personally involved. The Philanthropy Committee then selected the organizations most in line with Wendel’s values. In this way, associations working in France and the United States, the Group’s investment territories, received Wendel’s support.
With the creation of Wendel Cares, Wendel wishes to develop a philanthropic approach in line with its values. Throughout its history, Wendel has never stopped promoting the values of mutual aid and social progress. Building on this heritage, the endowment fund will enable Wendel to perpetuate these values by supporting initiatives that fall within the scope of Wendel Cares.
In 2022, Wendel continued to support solidarity projects, on the one hand by renewing some of its commitments and on the other hand by choosing to associate itself with new causes.
As part of the strengthening of its philanthropy strategy, Wendel offers each employee the possibility of dedicating one day of work time per year to a solidarity action. The purpose of this day of skills sponsorship is to allow each employee to get involved with the association of his or her choice. The association for which the skills sponsorship is envisaged must respect the principles of Wendel’s Ethics Charter and, in particular, must have no political and/or religious connotations and be non-profit.
In this spirit of skills sponsorship, Wendel also finances training courses aimed at preventing violence. These trainings are part of the Crisis Prevention Institute (CPI) catalog and are intended for the most at-risk staff of health and education organizations. With its “train-the-trainer” model, CPI’s expertise in crisis prevention and hostile behavior management is already recognized on the North American continent.
