Group of Indian school children collaborating in 3M's Young Change Agents of Road Safety while standing in a semi-circle

Community engagement

Our approach

3M employees share the same passion: helping make a difference in the world through science.

Through strategic investments and the thoughtful involvement of 3M businesses and sites, employees worldwide volunteer and leverage their skills and experience to make a difference in the world. In this way, we can combine 3M employee expertise with our products, technologies, and philanthropy to amplify our social impact. 3M and 3M Foundation develop and implement strategies and partnerships with leading community organizations committed to equitable outcomes in our community.

Active listening and engagement are the first steps to understanding and managing our impacts on local communities, as well as, helping identify opportunities to support them in their needs. Our community relations organization, 3Mgives, is committed to empowering our people through philanthropy programs and skills-based service initiatives. We focus on advancing equity in STEM and advanced manufacturing fields.

We also recognize the need to support marginalized families with basic needs and services to thrive in their local community — so we dedicate a portion of our giving to hometown priority issues led by site leaders globally.

Progress toward goals

$12.0 million invested towards our goal to:

Invest $50 million to address racial opportunity gaps in the U.S. through workforce development and STEM education initiatives by 2025¹
Progress will be available in 2023

Advance economic equity by creating five million unique STEM and skilled trades learning experiences for underrepresented individuals by the end of 2025²
$88.5 million towards our goal to:

Invest cash and products for education, community, and environmental programs by 2025
51,700 hours towards our goal to:

Provide 300,000 work hours of skills-based volunteerism by 3M employees to improve lives and help solve society’s toughest challenges by the end of 2025
2.92 million towards our goal to:

Provide training to five million people globally on worker and patient safety by 2025

2020 is the baseline measurement year.
2021 establishing baseline measurement year. 3M defines underrepresented individuals in the U.S. using National Science Foundation research. For global definitions, we rely on gender diversity and local context for marginalized populations.

Key actions in 2021

COVID-19 response
3M has invested more than $20 million in incremental cash philanthropy since the start of the pandemic to support health care workers and other vulnerable populations. Investing in the public health of our communities also mean investing in in our own manufacturing and technical capabilities for critical products that help support the fight against COVID-19.
- We expanded our production capacity of N95 respirators to meet the huge increase in demand. In August 2021, our 3M Aberdeen plant reached a milestone of 1 billion N95s produced since January 2020, and we reached a global capacity of 3 billion respirators annually by the end of 2021.
- We dedicated technical resources like our female-led 3M Global Respirator Decontamination Team to help evaluate decontamination methods of 3M disposable respirators and hoods, resulting in two of the first FDA Emergency Use Authorizations for items that weren’t designed to be cleaned or decontaminated. The team won the prestigious Global Team Leadership Award by the Society of Women Engineers.
- We continued to boost COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutic development and production by increasing our surge capacity of 3M purification and filtration technologies that support these manufacturing processes.
Learn more about how 3M is helping in the fight against COVID-19.
Racial equity
We invested a total of $12 million as part of our $50 million incremental giving commitment over five years. Highlights include:
- $2.4 million in support of Historically Black Colleges & Universities and Hispanic-Serving Institutions
- $2 million to Greater Twin Cities United Way
- $750K to East Side Employment xChange
Environmental justice

3M is building our global teams’ expertise on environmental justice and our responsibilities as an organization in contributing to it – aiming to create a new global environmental justice program, using science to improve lives and equity for all people, and collaborate with the communities where we work and live. Learn more in our 2021 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Report (PDF, 2.23 MB).
Training and learning programs
Science Encouragement Programs (SEP) connect students with 3M scientists and engineers to inspire them to pursue careers in science. Our global priority programs include:
- 3M Visiting Wizards: interesting and fun science demonstrations and hands-on experiments, in partnership with the Bakken Museum.
- 3M Tech Talks: classroom visits to provide students, especially women and minorities, with the opportunity to meet and interact with role models who enjoy technical careers.
In addition, 3M leaders around the world actively promote STEM programs for underserved populations in their community – including through FIRST^® Robotics sponsorships and other locally relevant initiatives. For example, in Singapore, 3M employees led a STEM education program for underprivileged students ages 7–12 with the Science Centre Singapore (SCS).