Social Action – Success has not always been self-evident, but helping others has
Even though VILPE is doing well today, this has not always been the case. The recession during the 90s in Finland hit our company hard, and at one point we were even on the verge of bankruptcy. We managed to survive the recession through hard work, although we have not forgotten what financial hardship feels like. During the recession, many Finns had to prioritize: in some cases, for instance, by pulling their children out of sports activities.
For this reason, it has always been self-evident for us to help others and take social responsibility. As soon as the company’s financial situation improved, we wanted to donate money to support those in need. At first, however, we did not have a plan for our donations and they were not stated in our strategy.
Today, our official strategy is that we donate 0.3 percent of our annual turnover to charity, regardless of our own financial situation. In practice, this means a donation of over 55 000 euros a year. We have made a conscious decision to consider issues of equality when forming sponsorship deals, and the causes we support include female sports. When planning our donations, we also focus on children, families, and other people in financially less fortunate positions. We aim to constantly find new ways to help others, and our social action efforts go beyond monetary donations: for example, we allow our employees to spend one working day a year doing charity work. Read more about our charity work during the 2020 holiday season (in Finnish).
At the moment, we support the following causes:
- Families. VILPE has donated money to the Hope association that supports disadvantaged families in the region of Vaasa and Finland.
- Sports
- VILPE is the main sponsor of Wasa Royals, an American football team based in Vaasa, Finland. We support both the women’s and men’s varsity teams, as well as the U20 team. In addition, we support ten junior players who couldn’t otherwise afford to train due to seasonal fees. The support is directed to these families via the Hope association. Read more about our partnership with Wasa Royals.
- VILPE is one of the main sponsors of the ice hockey team Vaasan Sport.
- VILPE is the main sponsor of the gymnastics club Wasa Unique. The main training facility of Wasa Unique is the VILPE Arena.
- VILPE sponsors HAVU Gaming, a Finnish e-sports organization and Kanaliiga, a national e-sports series for company teams.
- Education. We are proud of the large scale of education opportunities in the Vaasa region. Therefore, we have made donations to University of Vaasa and Vaasa University of Applied Sciences.
