IKEA - IKEA Social Initiative

IKEA Social Initiative

In September 2005, IKEA Social Initiative was formed to manage the company's social involvements on a global level. IKEA Social Initiative is headed by Marianne Barner.

The main partners to IKEA Social Initiative are UNICEF and Save the Children.

On 23 February 2009, at the ECOSOC event in New York, UNICEF announced that IKEA Social Initiative has become the agency's largest corporate partner, with total commitments of more than US$180 million.

Examples of involvements:

  • IKEA through IKEA Social Initiative contribute €1 to UNICEF and Save the Children from each soft toy sold during the holiday seasons, raising a total of €16.7 million so far.
  • IKEA Social Initiative provided soft toys to children in cyclone affected Burma.
  • Starting in June 2009, for every Sunnan solar-powered lamp sold in IKEA stores worldwide, IKEA Social Initiative will donate one Sunnan with the help of UNICEF.
  • In September 2011, the IKEA Foundation pledged to donate $62 million to help Somali refugees in Kenya.
  • According to The Economist, however, IKEA's charitable giving is meager, "barely a rounding error in the foundation's assets."

In 2009, Sweden's largest television station, SVT, revealed that IKEA's money—the three per cent collection from each store—does not actually go to a charitable foundation in the Netherlands, as IKEA has said. Inter IKEA is owned by a foundation in Liechtenstein, called Interogo, which has amassed twelve billion dollars, is controlled by the Kamprad family.

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