Western Union

About Western Union's Program
As the world leader in money transfers, Western Union is uniquely positioned to address the complex needs of migrants and their families, who represent about 10% of the global population and who are often overlooked in traditional philanthropy.  Western Union intimately understands the issues surrounding migration, as well as the population’s need for economic opportunity and education. It uses this business insight to target local philanthropy around the world for maximum social impact.

Recognizing the pressing needs of migrants and the fact that they made most of the US$369 billion in transfers in 2007, the company moved beyond its prior tendency to make small grants to many projects, to a multi-year, multi-million dollar commitment: the Our World, Our Family®  program. Our World, Our Family tackles the root causes of poverty which often necessitate migration. The program assists migrants and their families in adjusting to new communities, offering them language, education and economic opportunities. Western Union is also an advocate for migrant issues internationally, forging strategic alliances with leaders and serving as a high-level convener.

With hands-on leadership from Western Union’s CEO Christina Gold, the company launched an employee month of giving, plus a paid time-off volunteer effort to encourage involvement of the company’s 5,700 employees in more than 200 countries in the Our World, Our Family philanthropic program. Additionally, the company applied its marketing savvy to create awareness for the resources available through the program, underwrote research conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit to gather data that resulted in more informed decision-making about issues surrounding migration, and engaged a host of organizations such as the InterAmerican Development Bank, International Organization for Migration, The World Bank, Migration Policy Institute, and Mercy Corps.

Since its inception in 2007, Western Union’s Our World, Our Family program logged more than 2,000 employee volunteer hours of service, launched 300 new migrant businesses, engaged 1,800 NGOs in 100 countries, distributed 110,000 Learning Packs that help migrants adjust to their new communities, allocated more than $300,000 for scholarships, and helped Diaspora groups in the United States raise more than $500,000. In addition, more than $4.5 million has been generated in employee and agent gifts.

The Our World, Our Family program is helping to develop sustainable, scalable programs that foster new economic opportunities that break the cycle of poverty so that migration becomes a choice, rather than a necessity, for more than 200 million migrants and their families worldwide.

Watch video on Western Union's program.

Learn more about Western Union's philanthropy program.