Corporate Citizenship

Elanco focuses on enriching lives through food and companionship, making life science work for people by transforming animal agriculture and companion animal care, and providing trusted solutions for animal production, herd management and pet medicines.

While our mission defines who we are, we recognize that our actions and efforts as citizens of the world can have a tremendous impact. To that end, Elanco holds corporate social responsibility as an important company priority consistent with its values. We have focused our efforts on areas where we have the deepest expertise and interest — animal health and animal production — and thus can have the greatest impact. The five key areas of our philanthropic and social responsibility efforts are: world hunger, agriculture leadership, the human-animal bond, the environment, and community service.

We already have made strides in these areas. A few of our projects are highlighted below.

Fighting World Hunger

Elanco has committed financial and employee support to Heifer International, which helps people in developing countries produce nutritious, affordable food, and improve economics, in their communities. Each gift of an animal through Heifer offers direct benefits such as milk, eggs, wool and fertilizer, as well as indirect benefits that increase family incomes for better housing, nutrition, health care and school fees for children. Recipients “pass on the gift” of offspring of their cows, goats and other livestock to others in an ever-widening circle of hope.

One of Elanco's long-held goals is providing safe, affordable, wholesome food to the world. Heifer International is also focused on feeding peoples around the globe, primarily through sound food animal production and herd management practices, individualized to the region it is serving. Elanco has helped through providing expertise and funding, whether for poultry production in Africa or sustainable water buffalo husbandry in the Far East. Our goal is to have a measurable, positive impact on feeding hungry people worldwide through enhanced food animal production and herd management practices.

Agricultural Leadership

Elanco supports the National FFA Foundation for the National FFA Organization through donations and employee engagement.

Elanco’s relationship with FFA spans more than 14 years. The National FFA Organization, formerly known as the Future Farmers of America, is a youth organization that nurtures premier leadership, responsibility, and personal growth through encouraging development of student’s potential for career success through agricultural education. Nationwide, membership is more than 500,000, with more than 50,000 attending the annual national convention in Indianapolis.

The Human-Animal Bond

Elanco has partnered with the Purdue Center for the Human-Animal Bond to enhance the relationship between people and our pets.

Pet medicine is an important part of Elanco’s work. The driving mission for Lilly Companion Animal Health is to assist veterinarians in helping animals live longer, healthier, higher-quality lives, thereby enhancing the human-animal relationship. Purdue’s Center for the Human-Animal Bond is the only one of its kind in the world, focusing on the increasing importance of pets in our lives. Additionally, Purdue is widely regarded as one of the top veterinary schools in the world. Lilly Companion Animal Health and Elanco have a unique relationship with the school and the center. Elanco believes in Purdue’s mission to enhance understanding of the human-animal bond and encourage innovations in the pet medicine field.

Lilly CAH is working with veterinary organizations, schools and governments to enhance pet care. Working together, we are examining innovative ways to increase the pool of qualified veterinarians. These efforts focus on the importance of veterinarians in homeland security, food safety, academia, and practice — combining opportunities at Elanco for both the CAH and food animal divisions. Indiana is being considered as a pilot state for these efforts in the food animal and pet medicine arenas.

The Environment

Elanco products help reduce the environmental impact of feeding the world. We continue to look for innovative ways to improve protein production to provide the world healthy, safe, affordable food, always with an eye on the environmental impact of production.

Community Service

Elanco employees are committed to helping in the communities in which we live and work. One example of this is the company-wide participation in the Lilly Day of Service, possibly the largest corporate volunteer initiatives to ever take place on one day.

This past May, employees from Algeria to Venezuela donated time and energy to improve the health and well-being of communities around the world. In Turkey, employees planted trees to assist with reforestation efforts. In China, employees walked the Great Wall to raise funds to fight multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis. And in Greenfield, Elanco’s headquarters, the company took on several projects that fight hunger, boost the human-animal bond, and provide support for the needy in many ways.

The Global Day of Service serves as the signature event for the company's “Hands and Hearts” program, which was launched in 2007 to enhance and encourage employee involvement with nonprofit organizations. In 2007, Lilly's philanthropic contributions totaled about $315 million, including about $240 million in products for patient assistance programs and international humanitarian causes. Lilly's total 2007 giving represents about six percent of its adjusted income before taxes and has positioned Lilly once again as one of the most charitable companies in the world.

More information about the Global Day of Service, including project descriptions and photos, is available online.