Sallie Mae - Social Responsibility

Social Responsibility

Corporate Responsibility Officer has named Sallie Mae one of America's "100 Best Corporate Citizens" five times. Corporations (over 1,100 are evaluated) are selected according to community, governance, diversity, and environmental best business practices.

Sallie Mae sponsors The Sallie Mae Fund, a charitable organization with a mission to increase access to higher education for America's students by supporting and starting programs and initiatives that help open doors to higher education. The Sallie Mae Fund prepares families and students for college and provides scholarship funding that focuses on minority, low-income, and "first in the family" students. Since 2001, The Sallie Mae Fund has awarded $10 million in scholarships to help 4,000 students enroll in college. That is $1 donated for every $12,690 under their management.

Through The Fund's work, Sallie Mae was named among BusinessWeek's Top 15 Corporate Philanthropists in 2004. The Washington Business Journal identified the company as the top local corporate philanthropist in 2005.

Sallie Mae won the Ron Brown Award for Corporate Leadership in 2006. It was honored for three college-access programs developed by The Sallie Mae Fund: Latino College Access Campaign, Project Access: DC, and The Sallie Mae Fund Scholarship Programs.

The Sallie Mae Fund earned the 2007 Insight Award for Customer Advocacy in Financial Services (from Insight Forums, LLC). The award recognizes financial communications initiatives that proactively enable customers to make fully informed choices.