The MIT Initiative is an integral part of Henkel’s international corporate culture and its CSR-policy. Around the world Henkel’s employees and pensioners perform volunteer activities in their freetime for the benefit of society. Through the MIT Initiative (Make an Impact on Tomorrow) Henkel honours this social commitment: Henkel supports charitable projects in which our employees and retirees are involved as volunteers. Support may take the form of in-kind, product and financial donations or the release of employees from their company duties on full pay. This enables the employees and retirees all over the world to help alleviate local problems while, as the project heads, they play a pivotal role as a link between the Company and its social environment.

By supporting the social engagement of our employees and retirees, we ensure that our assistance is channeled to where it is needed most. The employee or retiree and the Company act as a team in which each partner makes his own contribution. The employees and retirees themselves ensure that all resources are applied in a transparent and efficient way.

Henkel has many faces. One of the most beautiful ones is Henkel-Smile. The pictures on this site are the 10 winning images of the second international MIT-Photo Competition 2007 – initiated of Henkel-Smile. More than 591 photos were submitted from all over the world. The ten best entries for the second MIT Photo Competition each received an extra grant for the projects to which the photos relate.

Through the MIT Initiative (MIT stands for “Make an Impact on Tomorrow”) Henkel funds socially beneficial projects in which our employees and retirees work on an honorary, volunteer basis. 

The projects are divided into two categories: MIT Community Projects and MIT Children's Projects.

The MIT Community Projects are selected by local juries and funded by the local Henkel companies. Since 2001, in addition to these, Henkel has been focusing on children and adolescents by the MIT Children’s Projects. Starting in 2007, Henkel will support the MIT Community Projects by providing an additional amount of 500 thousend euros especially for economically underdeveloped regions.

1,125 MIT children’s projects have been supported up to now, including 262 in 2006 alone. Thus Henkel – as a team with its employees and pensioners – made the lives of over 45,000 children a little better.

The MIT Initiative is rolled out worldwide. Up to now, 50 countries of the Henkel world have adopted this module to support their employees’ and pensioners’ enthusiasm in making the lives of people worldwide a little better.

In 2000, the United Nations defined eight Millenium Development Goals, which were to be achieved by the year 2015. Through the MIT Initiative, Henkel makes many small but important contributions that go beyond its business interests, helping to achieve these goals especially in developing countries and emerging economies, where more than half of the MIT projects are carried out.

The projects initiated by employees and pensioners cover a wide range of themes and all the Millenium Development Goals. For example, 43 percent of the MIT children’s projects were aimed at improving primary education. The projects helped finance the expansion of schools, supply teaching materials and, by providing scholarships, encourage school attendance. 21 percent of the MIT children’s projects contributed to overcoming poverty and hunger. They included projects to help street children and orphans, provide meals, and extend drinking water wells and plants.