A social investment model that involves employees: The Social Challenge

In 2015 we launched a new way of selecting social funding initiatives, called “The Social Challenge”. This is a participatory process of identifying and selecting social projects developed by non-profit organizations operating in the provinces of Milan and Varese, and every year we grant them six contributions of 10,000 Euro each. The only projects taken into consideration are those to be implemented in the provinces of Milan or Varese (where our Linate and Malpensa airports are respectively located) and are concerned with the social, environmental or cultural sphere. At the heart of the process there are SEA employees, who are invited every year to:

• identify non-profit organizations with operational offices in the provinces of Milan and Varese;
• receive or formulate environmental or cultural project in cooperation with them;
• present the project to SEA, which submits it to an Assessment Committee (consisting of three SEA representatives and three non-profit world experts) for an initial selection;
• if the project is selected, encourage colleagues to support it, expressing their preference in a referendum held on Seanet intranet platform.

Non-profit organizations with operational offices in the provinces of Milan and Varese are also asked to play an active role by submitting social projects to the Promoters. These are submitted in turn to employees of SEA and any projects chosen by them are subsequently admitted to the same assessment and voting process applied to projects submitted by employees.

The Social Challenge: 2015 edition’s numbers