CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
A note from our CEO, Bob Gogel:
We have another fantastic year in the books for building our CSR efforts internally and externally. No matter how many participants WorldStrides programs brings on experiential learning programs, each individual remains at the core of our focus, upholding our promise to provide a safe, educational, sustainable, and inclusive trip to every WorldStrides participant. With the guidance of Eurazeo, we have expanded our sustainability and DEI initiatives both in the office and on program, conducted trainings, and created resources to ensure all initiatives are properly received and implemented for a holistic CSR strategy. We are proud of the accomplishments made to date and are even more excited to continue our efforts to learn and grow in our socially responsible journey.
We made the commitment to operate in a way to positively influence the world—to provide access to experiential education and serve communities worldwide while operating in an environmentally, socially, and ethically responsible way.
At WorldStrides, our approach to our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy goes beyond an Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) commitment on how we do business—it’s woven into our DNA.
Our CSR strategy defines our business purpose. Across WorldStrides, we have a team of talented and passionate people dedicated to upholding our mission: Enabling students to see themselves and the world in new ways through educational travel and experiential learning.
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Our CSR strategy guides how we identify and deliver value to our team members, customers, and communities. For us, that means: Education Foster student and faculty engagement to provide moments that delight and open up the world of learning
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Ensure employees and participants feel supported and celebrated
Sustainability Reduce environmental impacts in our offices and on tour
Health & Wellness Invest in the well-being of our participants and employees
Community Engagement Increase philanthropic impact with strategic community partners
To accomplish these goals, we: • Give responsibility of our time and resources to causes that advance access to educational travel and experiential learning opportunities • While also creating an inclusive environment • And cultivating a sustainable community
We do this by: • Collaborating with others to identify the most impactful CSR opportunities • Executing on specific CSR initiatives that create a meaningful impact on our people, participants, and communities • Building brand awareness and leveraging our platform to create an inclusive and sustainable community
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A special thanks to our experienced leadership team who have consistently collaborated across the organization to create a positive impact for our team members, participants, and communities. Adrienne Howard
Adrienne leads WorldStrides’ Corporate Social Responsibility efforts and strategic program management. Adrienne’s entire career has been dedicated to connecting people, building global teams, and delivering value to customers. Adrienne joined WorldStrides after serving as a Managing Director at S&P Global Market Intelligence, leading the division’s strategy planning process, and leading teams focused on organizational development programs. Adrienne earned a BA in English and an MBA from West Virginia University, where she also served as an adviser, tutor, and mentor for undergraduates.
Molly Laycob
Molly leads WorldStrides’ strategic planning and implementation of internal and external sustainability initiatives across the organization. Molly has a BS in Environmental Studies and International Affairs, along with a Global Pathways Scholar certification, from Florida State University. Following her undergraduate studies, Molly returned to her hometown of St. Louis, MO, to earn her Master’s in Sustainability from Saint Louis University, where she completed her thesis on the importance of implementing sustainability into local community efforts.
Yolanda Golden
Yolanda leads WorldStrides’ strategic planning and implementation of DEI initiatives that impact employee training and development, product delivery, and customer service. Yolanda has aided communities by serving, training, and developing programs to support diverse populations for over 25 years in K12 and Higher Ed spaces. Her combined experience across the K12 and Higher Ed landscapes provide her an advantage to truly understand the needs of our customers across the lifelong learning journey. Yolanda earned a BS in Psychology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a Master of Social Work from Loyola University of Chicago.
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Robin Reliford
Robin leads domestic and international health, safety, and crisis management for WorldStrides, monitoring world events, implementing emergency protocols and procedures, and working closely with executive management on policy development and compliance. Robin works with WorldStrides’ Tour Central and field operations teams around the world, as well as partners like the George Washington University Department of Emergency Medicine and WorldAware, who have helped us to build the best health and safety infrastructure in the field of educational travel and study abroad.
Kiersten Teitelbaum
As the Head of Academics for WorldStrides, Kiersten leads the organizational efforts to instill education into everything we do. She holds an M.Ed. in the Social Foundations of Education and is currently completing her Ed.D. in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Virginia. Her doctoral research reinforces WorldStrides’ mission of experiential learning and sustained engagement through travel. Her background includes teaching environmental education, leadership, communication, and physical activity through various experiential learning courses across grade levels.
Kellie Goldstein
Kellie leads finance, accounting, tax, treasury, human resources, and real estate to ensure the financial health of the company and optimization of the company’s talent and people strategies globally. Kellie shares WorldStrides’ passion for educational travel and experiences, having explored much of the world herself while living in Hong Kong and having worked as an Adjunct Faculty of Accounting at the University of Virginia. She has a Master’s in Accounting from George Mason University and completed her undergraduate degree in Business at Virginia Tech.
While we have made significant strides forward in our socially responsible journey, we are gearing up to accomplish even more in the future. We are exploring opportunities to become more sustainable, finding ways to ensure CSR is incorporated into all our programs while caring for our people. We welcome you to join us on our journey.
CHOOSE EARTH
At WorldStrides, we Choose Earth. It’s our way of building environmental and social responsibility into the ethos and outcomes of our business practices and educational programs. We believe that these programs should be adventurous and focus on learning about our most challenging societal problems, all circling back to our dedication to a sustainable future. Being an educational provider, we hold a special platform and opportunity to allow participants to engage in sustainable thinking while minimizing our company’s carbon footprint internally and externally. WorldStrides is dedicated to providing experiential learning opportunities that help build the knowledge, skills, and attitudes students need to become locally engaged, civically minded, and globally responsible. Our Choose Earth initiative is designed to encourage participants to make informed choices, personal decisions, and collective actions that sustain the planet’s vitality, diversity, and longevity. Conveying to the employees and students that individual choices made at a local level have a global impact is essential, which is why the expansion of Choose Earth across all WorldStrides divisions is a top priority. While Choose Earth encompasses a larger goal toward sustainable practices among participants and WorldStrides team members, our Choose Earth initiatives that have a direct positive impact on the environment include:
Reducing Our Carbon Footprint UPS Carbon Neutral Shipping • Our agreement with UPS allows us to track all carbon emissions from our freight and air shipments. We pay a set carbon offsetting rate to UPS per domestic and international shipment that directly supports their sustainability initiatives, including: * Alternative fuel vehicles * Global Forestry Initiative Foundation * Route optimization technology (reduces gas milage) * Sustainable packaging Waste Management Taskforce • WorldStrides began measuring environmental and social data across our offices in 2018 with the goal of not only reporting to our stakeholders but also conducting audits to make sustainable improvements. Items measured include water usage, energy consumption, percent of renewable energy used by each office, gender equality among staff, and eco-friendly initiatives taking place every day. Offices which have implemented change in 2021 to divert waste from landfills include: * Charlottesville, Virginia implemented an Office Supplies Zero Waste TerraCycle Bin * Vienna, Virginia implemented a FreshPacks TerraCycle bin for their single-use beverage items * Austin, Texas implemented an Office Supplies Zero Waste TerraCycle Bin
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The Choose Earth Certificate •
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The Choose Earth Certificate program is designed to give participants a concrete way to participate in our organization’s Choose Earth goals while giving them the necessary tools to reflect on their engagement and impact. Students must complete the following four requirements to earn the certificate: sustainability curriculum, a hands-on eco-challenge, social media or class engagement, and a reflection project or essay. In 2021, Choose Earth Certificate requirements were completed by students located in South Korea, Spain, Italy, Germany, Costa Rica, and the Netherlands.
On-Program Sustainability • •
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At WorldStrides, we pride ourselves on maximizing each programs uniqueness and relevance to the program location, which also includes site-specific sustainability initiatives. At the request of Florida Course Leaders, we now offer reusable utensil kits to select Florida programs to align with the highly requested solution to our single-use plastic consumption while eating lunches outdoors. Through partnerships with sustainability-minded vendors like Fresh Crunch and Firehouse Subs, our Boxed Lunch Recycling Program ensures as much lunch waste as possible is diverted from the landfill while also encouraging recycling and composting throughout our programs.
WorldStrides recognizes the urgent need to make ethical changes that positively benefit the natural environments in which we operate and to be the best partner possible in our communities. WorldStrides’ CSR strategy embraces this approach, as we continually reflect on and refine our business practices and educational programs to generate a more sustainable world.
GREEN ALLIANCE To ensure that each functional area of WorldStrides has representation on our sustainability journey and a space to voice their eco-conscious goals, we established a sustainability committee, The Green Alliance, which streamlines the process of implementing sustainability initiatives on our educational programs and in the office.
Focus Areas of the Green Alliance • • • • •
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Waste management Carbon offsetting Environmentally focused curriculum Team member sustainability training Future small- and large-scale sustainability goals
DIVERSITY EQUITY INCLUSION While providing varied, impactful, and accessible educational experiences to diverse populations has always been a core value of WorldStrides, for the past two years we have renewed our commitment not only to program participants but also to full and part-time team members around the world. We’ve created a full-time Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) role that was tasked with leading enterprisewide initiatives for the purposes of increasing of staff diversity, increasing DEI curriculum and program content, and implementing strategies to make programs more inclusive for vulnerable and marginalized populations. Additionally, we’ve invested people across the organization as well as our partners to help cultivate an inclusive community by: • Providing DEI-centered training to our external vendors, especially our University Partners • Conducting DEI-centered training for all team members across the organization • Creating five Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) designed to increase cultural competency, foster inclusion across business units, provide support and DEI training to staff, and develop and implement initiatives • Developing task force and training content focused on inclusion, hosting 22 company-wide events, and facilitating a variety of team member volunteer opportunities via our ERGs To assist with ensuring that DEI initiatives were strategically developed and implemented across the organization, Worldstrides formed a DEI Council in that includes 12 full-time staff representatives from key core business units, program teams, and Employee Resource Groups.
The DEI Council’s mission promotes building a culturally competent workforce where all employees are empowered to contribute their multiple perspectives.
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Through brave conversations and project-based work, the DEI Council creates strategies to foster diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging within WorldStrides and leads the implementation of these strategies across the organization. The council is chaired by the Head of DEI and executive sponsored by the Head of Community Social Responsibility (CSR), and is divided into three working sub-groups: • Workforce: Focuses on increasing geographical diversity amongst full and part-time team members and program participants, developing strategies to enhance recruitment and retention of staff that are more inclusive • Workplace: Fosters culture of inclusion and belonging amongst team members through training and sponsoring workplace or community engagement events • Marketplace: Cultivates external relationships with vendors, participants, and other key stakeholders; assists with marketing and recruitment promotional strategies The ERGs are voluntarily chaired by full-time employees, with members of the WorldStrides’ leadership team providing executive sponsorship. ERGs are created to support WorldStrides’ efforts to attract and retain the best talent, promote leadership and development at all ranks, build an internal support system for colleagues across the organization, and encourage diversity and inclusion among employees at all levels.
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The ERGs each have a unique area of interest and have provided numerous enterprise-wide events or shared resources that increases the knowledge of social justice, culture, and advocacy while continuing to foster a culture of belonging amongst team members. Below are descriptions of their focus areas and enterprise-wide led events they have hosted.
Black Organization Leadership & Development (BOLD) Group focuses on raising awareness of the work and community interests of Black professionals and their allies and strategies for increasing hiring and retention of diverse staff. • Candlelight Vigil in support of Black Lives Matter • • •
28 Days of Black History Bruch with BOLD: A Conversation with Sophie Flack on Corporate Social Responsibility Juneteenth and Kwanza Newsletter Features
Caminamos Juntos Source of community building and support for Hispanic/Latinx staff and their allies who also provide enterprise-wide training on Latinx issues, programming, and cultural competency. • Celebration of Latinx & Hispanic Heritage Month: Culture, Food, & Art • Sombresa • Día de los Muertos • Spearheading interest group surveys for WorldStrides’ Mérida office
FEmpowerment Source of community for those who identify as women with a focus on support, skill sharing, raising awareness of workplace issues that impact women, and strategies to retain talent. • FEmpowerment presents a virtual lunch with Sheri Riley • Fireside Chat with Vivianne Akriche • Celebration of Women’s History Month
PRIDE Source of community for LGBTQ2SIA+ members, a resource for allies, and a force for growth in the company. • Advocating and obtaining designated gender-neutral bathrooms at WorldStrides offices • Updating WorldStrides’ pronoun policy • Observation of Pride Month & Virtual Pride Parade • Uplifting Trans Remembrance Day • Pride Presents: Queer Issues in Education with Dallas K. Heaton
Well-Being Focuses on building a safe space for staff to focus on physical and mental wellness and the promotion of healthy work life balance practices within the organization. • • • •
Sharing wellness resources on a monthly basis Guided meditation on mindfulness Celebration of wellness with Mindful March Uplifting National Stress Awareness Day
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In partnership with key stakeholders, such as Human Resources, the CSR team has spearheaded additional DEI Initiatives have been successfully implemented to include: • Mental Health Day for all team members • Global Buddy Program: Team member exchange program designed to increase cultural awareness and belonging outside of an individual’s designated team • Expanding on program needs accommodations for participants and team members • Flexible work arrangements that offer a variety of remote and in-office work options to team members • Courageous Conversations: Series that focuses on themes centered around diversity, equity, and inclusion
The Intersectionality of Environmental and Social Justice We believe corporate social responsibility should always include a holistic approach that values social and environmental justice issues, initiatives, and trainings that focus on the promotion of inclusion, diversity, equity, and sustainability. Including members from The Green Alliance, DEI Council, and ERGs on trainings and initiatives in consultation with members of the CSR team ensures continuous alignment of our environmental and social justice goals. As part of our culture of belonging, equity, and resource sharing, we provide a variety of learning opportunities to include the following: Team Member Engagement • Choose Earth Newsletter * To ensure that all sustainability efforts across the organization are highlighted and utilized to their fullest potential, we send out a monthly sustainability newsletter, the Choose Earth Newsletter, that keeps environmentalism truthful, fun, and collaborative. » 2021 marked our 40th edition of the Choose Earth Newsletter as well as achieving a wider audience due to its new presence on our internal team member website. • IDEAS (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Actions) Newsletter * Provides ongoing updates and resources focused on culture, art, DEI holidays, training, and enterprisewide events to increase team member knowledge of diversity, equity, and inclusion. * 20 ERG and 9 DEI Council facilitated events with themes focused on a range of topics to include increasing cultural competencies, social and environmental justice, corporate social responsibility, and inclusion. Team Member Training • WorldStrides team member training is an integral part of our sustainability and DEI implementation process. We believe that a CSR goal is only successful if the team members implementing it are fully trained on the initiative itself. Our training processes ensure that all team members have plenty of opportunities and resources to learn and provide feedback on all sustainability and DEI projects that are seen throughout the offices and programs * Training categories include: » Enterprise wide Courageous Conversations Social Series focused inclusive communication, gender identity, Black Lives Matter movement, program culture, mental health and wellness, and navigating difficult conversations when differences are the source of issues » Choose Earth Certificate training for on-site team members » Waste Management training for offices that implement new waste streams » Sustainability training for functioning areas throughout WorldStrides » Leadership coaching for DEI Council, Green Alliance, and ERG Leaders on volunteer engagement for members
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CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY COR-2022-394410