J&J employees share their Talent for Good with Special Olympics Switzerland

As part of the global Talent for Healthy Communities program, Johnson & Johnson employees support local non-governmental organizations with skills and expertise.

For the last four years, Talent for Healthy Communities, a Talent for Good program, has given Johnson & Johnson employees the opportunity to support local NGOs across North America with their skills and expertise. One of many program highlights was with The Institute of Advanced Medicine at Mt. Sinai (New York) where, in 2020, a J&J team worked to improve in-person and telehealth patient intake processes. Last year, 49 employees helped ten NGOs tackle their specific challenges and to address their critical capacity-building needs.

In 2021, Talent for Healthy Communities was rolled out globally and Switzerland was one of the three EMEA countries participating. This year, approximately 110 employees are working in teams to make an impact for 26 NGOs. For the first time ever, five Johnson & Johnson volunteers in Switzerland had the chance to work pro bono on a challenge for 12 weeks. The participants supported one of J&J’s key partners: Special Olympics Switzerland, an organization dedicated to the accessibility of sports for people with disabilities. The volunteers’ main goal was to help the NGO with the development of a creative communication strategy and to identify how to better engage with existing donors as well as to attract new private donors.

For the employees engaging in the project, it was exciting and challenging at the same time. They had to solve a specific problem, learn new skills in the process and work on a project with colleagues from other parts of the business. Esther O’Reilly, Global Marketing Director, was one of the volunteers and the team leader for the J&J team: „Supporting charitable organizations gives me a different kind of satisfaction in my daily work. This was the reason why I joined the Talent for Healthy Communities program, and I feel that my experiences in strategic marketing, communications planning and lots of enthusiasm helped strengthen the Special Olympic brand’s overall awareness and develop a consistent communications strategy for them. It was a pleasure to be on this journey together with my colleagues.”

Most importantly, Special Olympics Switzerland profited from the program. Irene Nanculaf, responsible for marketing and communication at Special Olympics, shares her thoughts: „We have a very special partnership with Johnson & Johnson that goes far beyond classic sponsorship and this year. We were even chosen to be part of the special Talent for Healthy Communities program. It was extremely helpful for us and a truly inspiring exchange, because we could benefit from the expertise and creativity of very committed Johnson & Johnson employees in an area where we ourselves lacked the technical know-how.”

Emelie Dorlin, Senior Manager Community Impact, was part of launching the program locally: „I am very happy that we were able to launch Talent for Healthy Communities in Switzerland. Not only has it been a fantastic way to further strengthen our collaboration with Special Olympics and help them solve a critical challenge. It’s also been great to offer our employees a new volunteering opportunity where they can share their professional skills and, as a team, get to develop a recommendation and solution that will have a long-term impact for our partner. The motivation and engagement of the J&J team has been inspiring and I hope we will be able to offer this program again next year.”