From Guesswork to Growth: How GE Appliances increased volunteer hours by 134%

Company overview 

GE Appliances, a Haier company, is the number one appliance manufacturer in the United States, with products found in roughly half of all American homes. Nearly 16,000 employees work across 40 states in the U.S. including nine manufacturing facilities, with its largest campus and corporate headquarters at Appliance Park in Louisville, Kentucky.

Community engagement is led by the People, Culture and Community Engagement team under a philosophy they call zero distance — staying close to employees, customers and communities so the best ideas come from the people experiencing the challenges firsthand.

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The challenge 

As volunteering expanded beyond a single annual event, GE Appliances found itself at an inflection point. The appetite to support communities in a meaningful way was there, but the systems supporting the program hadn't kept pace.

The team needed a way to grow participation across offices, remote employees, and manufacturing plants while ensuring every employee had an opportunity to shape the causes and communities that mattered most. At the same time, they needed reliable data to understand what was working and where to invest next.

GE Appliances needed to balance three priorities:

• Move beyond guesswork: Without a centralized way to capture volunteer activity, the team lacked visibility into who was participating, where engagement was happening and the true impact of their efforts.
• Expand access across the workforce: The existing model revolved around headquarters, making it difficult for hourly production employees across nine manufacturing facilities to participate in meaningful ways.
• Build a program that could grow year-round: A single annual volunteer event created excitement, but not sustained engagement or a scalable model for employee-led impact.

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The solution 

Giving employees the opportunity, empowerment and trust to lead.

Rather than growing its community program through a larger corporate team, GE Appliances chose to empower employees to lead. By combining employee leadership with Benevity's volunteering platform, the company created a model where ideas come from the people closest to their communities, while giving program leaders the visibility and confidence to support participation as it grows. The result is an experience that's organized, accessible and easy for employees to engage with.

That philosophy comes to life across the program:

• Put employees at the center of decision-making: A Volunteer Council made up of passionate employees from every business function and employee resource group helps identify community needs and bring new opportunities to life.
• Make volunteering part of everyday culture: Employees can create, launch and participate in volunteer opportunities throughout the year, moving beyond a single annual event.
• Turn participation into actionable insight: Every volunteer project is captured in Benevity, replacing estimates with real-time reporting and helping leaders understand engagement across locations.
• Connect community investment to employee passion: Volunteer and donation activity helps inform grant decisions, ensuring funding follows the causes employees are already supporting.

‍The results

A stronger culture of participation, backed by measurable impact

What began as a new approach to volunteering has evolved into a more connected, employee-led program that reaches across GE Appliances' offices, remote workers, and manufacturing facilities and communities.

With employees helping shape where and how the company invests philanthropically, volunteering has become more accessible, more consistent and easier to measure. Leaders now have the visibility to understand what's driving engagement, while employees have more opportunities to support the causes they're passionate about throughout the year.

The results show up in both participation and growth:

• 134% increase in volunteer hours logged since GE Appliances began tracking participation in Benevity.
• 1.36x more volunteer hours logged in 2025 compared to the previous year, as employee engagement continued to accelerate.
• 100% increase in employee-led volunteer projects over the past three years.
• 1,050 employees participated in Blue Wave in 2025, representing a 21% year-over-year increase in participation.

The impact goes beyond the numbers. One employee who left GE Appliances for another opportunity ultimately chose to return - with the company’s culture and commitment to community reinforcing the decision to come back.

‍Partnership highlights

GE Appliances continues to build on the momentum of its employee-led approach by:

• Expanding volunteer leadership across all business functions, remote employees, manufacturing facilities and employee resource groups.
• Growing accessibility-focused initiatives inspired by employee innovation.
• Using Benevity insights to better understand engagement trends and inform future community investments.
• Creating more opportunities for employees to shape how the company invests in communities throughout the year.
  
  

By giving employees the opportunity to lead - and leaders the visibility to understand what resonates - GE Appliances is building a community program designed to grow alongside its people and its business.

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