Foundation Overview
Welcome to the website for the
For more than 25 years, Sara Lee Corporation and the Sara Lee Foundation have been dedicated to playing a meaningful role in community life. The Sara Lee Foundation was founded in 1981 to formalize Sara Lee’s dedication to community service. Since then, the Foundation has grown and set a new standard for corporate giving, touching millions of lives, helping those in need, and fostering artistic expression.
Giving - cash contributions, product donations and volunteerism - is an important part of the culture at Sara Lee. The Sara Lee Foundation concentrates the majority of its support on organizations and causes in Greater Metropolitan Chicago, site of the corporation’s headquarters. Outside of Chicago, giving is decentralized, as Sara Lee divisions - across the country and around the world - work with community agencies to support programs addressing critical local needs.
We take great pride in the reputation we have built as a leader in corporate citizenship and will continue this role by providing philanthropic support to communities where our employees live and work and by focusing support on food-related programs such as food insecurity, nutrition and healthy lifestyles; women’s self-sufficiency and diverse and highly visible arts and cultural programs.
In working to enrich the lives of so many, we too have been enriched by the rewarding experiences that being a good corporate citizen brings.