Empowering purpose at scale: Ciena’s social impact growth with Benevity

Company overview 

Ciena is the global leader in high-speed connectivity. With 8,600 employees across 35 countries, Ciena needed a flexible, inclusive social impact program that could scale with its workforce while staying true to its roots. 

Ciena’s corporate social responsibility journey evolved from a grassroots initiative into a globally recognized force for good. Their goal? To support people’s passions, empower communities, and strengthen culture – one act of good at a time.

The challenge 

Ciena's social impact journey began organically in 2016 when passionate employees sought to support colleagues' philanthropic interests. The initial program was a humble start, offering one volunteer day and a $500 donation match. As Ciena experienced significant growth in headcount, the need for a more structured and scalable approach became evident. While the company introduced unlimited volunteer time off and increased donation matching, managing diverse programs, tracking participation, and demonstrating global impact required a centralized, robust platform. The social impact team faced challenges with:

• Using manual processes for tracking volunteer hours and vetting nonprofit organizations consumed valuable time for the lean social impact team.
• finding a way to encourage widespread participation beyond a passionate core group. They aimed to increase participation from 17% in 2020 to 50% by 2030.
• Being able to comprehensively report on participation across different teams and for overall program goals was challenging without an integrated system.
• Driving employee engagement by offering an open program that engaged employees in what they cared about, requiring a platform that could support these broader business objectives.

The solution 

In 2019, Ciena strategically selected the Benevity Enterprise Impact Platform. This implementation provided a unified and intuitive experience for employees, offering access to millions of nonprofits globally and a powerful administrative backbone for the social impact team. Key aspects of the solution included:

• Comprehensive product adoption: Ciena actively uses Benevity's Volunteer and Donate modules, powered by the Platform.
• Flexible giving and volunteering: Benevity enabled Ciena to offer features like global and cross-border giving, employee-created opportunities, seeding of giving accounts for new hires and program champions, and volunteer rewards.
• Enhanced communication and campaign management: Ciena utilized Benevity's content streams and campaign kits to quickly launch timely initiatives, including targeted giving opportunities to support disaster relief wherever our employees are located.
• Streamlined reporting and insights: The platform allowed Ciena to better track and report on its impact, measure progress against goals, and benchmark against industry best practices. This included measuring overall participation rates, percentage of users volunteering and donating, and the Benevity Impact Index (BII) score.

Strategic collaboration: The social impact team leads program communications and collaborates with internal communications, PR, brand, and creative teams to amplify impact stories, leveraging Benevity data and continuing to embed social impact into Ciena’s culture and brand.

The results

The partnership with Benevity supported the growth of Ciena's social impact programs, yielding significant operational efficiencies, enhanced employee engagement, and a strengthened brand reputation.

• Record participation and philanthropy: In 2024, Ciena achieved its 2030 goal of 50% overall employee participation — a 194% increase from 2020 — 6 years ahead of schedule. This engagement led to 37,048 volunteered hours and $3.95 million donated through personal contributions, company matching, and volunteer rewards. The "Go Do Good Month" alone saw over 1,000 employees participate, dedicating over 4,100 volunteer hours to important nonprofits and $250,000 raised in one month.
• Enhanced employee engagement and retention: Ciena's overall employee engagement score in 2024 was 83, five points above the industry benchmark. The Ciena Cares program is now a key factor in attracting and retaining talent, with 89% of its global workforce viewing giving and volunteering as integral to Ciena's culture.

Strengthened brand and operational efficiency: Ciena's external social media posts on community impact saw 2X growth in engagement. The company also earned the Benevity People Power Goodie Award and Volunteer Ottawa Leadership in Corporate Volunteerism Award, reinforcing its purpose-driven brand.

Partnership highlights

Ciena’s social impact growth and transformation is a masterclass in scaling purpose with people at the center. By trusting employees, empowering champions, and aligning with business goals, they’ve built a program that not only drives measurable impact - but does so with humility, authenticity, and heart.

Ciena views its partnership with Benevity as a long-term strategic collaboration that evolves alongside its impact ambitions. As the program continues to grow, Ciena is expanding its use of innovative platform capabilities to simplify employee participation and strengthen measurement of meaningful outcomes.

Benevity’s scalable technology and ongoing support enable Ciena to extend its reach globally while remaining agile and responsive. Most importantly, Benevity serves as a true partner - helping Ciena translate bold goals into sustained, measurable impact.