ING Canada receives many worthwhile community requests -- far more than we could ever support. While we recognize there are many important causes in Canada, we must be selective in the ones that we can effectively address.

To clarify our focus, ING Canada has carefully chosen two core areas where we feel our expertise and support can help to make a difference.

1. Empowering Canada's next generation of aspiring leaders and citizens.
   
2. Enhancing communities where ING Canada employees and stakeholders live and work, and encouraging the involvement and citizenship of our employees and brokers.

 
Empowering Canada's youth
We will consider providing community investment support to organizations, programs or projects that empower Canada's next generation of leaders and citizens to achieve their full potential. We emphasize projects that strive to:

• Mentor tomorrow's leaders. We support interactive and formalized mentoring and leadership development programs that encourage and empower Canada's youth to realize their potential.
  
• Reduce youth-on-youth violence. This will focus on interventions that address the causes and solutions of the growing problem of bullying and other forms of youth-on-youth violence at school and among peer groups. We hope to help provide a school and youth environment that is safe and free from bullying.
  
• Build resilience and independence among youth at risk. We aid organizations and social programs that foster resilience, prevention and independence among youth whose lives are at risk due to family poverty, homelessness or conflict. We believe that programs that enable and equip high-risk youth will help break the cruel cycle of poverty and inter-personal conflict.
  
• Improve quality of life for young people, especially those who are ill or disadvantaged. This includes programs that help children and teens facing serious or life-threatening illness or who are disabled or socio-economically vulnerable.

Enhancing local capacity in ING Canada communities and encouraging the involvement of our people
ING Canada employees and stakeholders live and work in a variety of communities throughout the country, from smaller towns to large cities. Each community is unique and has its own needs. ING Canada therefore strives to support organizations and groups that are important in the different communities that our employees and stakeholders call home. We encourage the involvement and citizenship of all our employees and broker partners, and we investigate sponsorship possibilities with organizations and groups that our people support.

For example, ING has long been a proud supporter of the United Way in its effort to develop long-term solutions to community problems. In 2005, campaigns in ING offices across Canada, matched with gifts from the ING Foundation, raised close to one million dollars for local United Way agencies. From donating through payroll deduction to participating in campaign events, our employees generously responded to the needs of less fortunate Canadians.