Giving Back

Making medicines is just one way we strive to positively impact society.

Giving back has been embedded in our culture since our founding more than 45 years ago, and we’re proud to be consistently recognized as one of the top corporate philanthropists in the Bay Area.

We believe giving is a powerful tool to drive change — in our local communities and society at large. We want to improve the health and wellbeing of all patients, and create a future of science that is more diverse, inclusive, and equitable. But deeply rooted inequities, structural racism, and other forms of systemic injustice hinder our ability to achieve this vision.

Through our signature philanthropic programs, employee volunteerism, corporate charitable giving and the Genentech Foundation, we aim to address these disparities and diversify the scientific and healthcare workforce, advance a more just healthcare system, and build local partnerships to ensure our communities thrive.

We focus our giving on three key areas:

Cultivating a Diverse Future of STEM, from Kindergarten to Careers

We envision a scientific and medical workforce that reflects the diversity of the people it serves.

It can take more than 15 years to develop a medicine—and to raise an aspiring scientist. Today’s students are the researchers, physicians and healthcare innovators of tomorrow. But all too often, students of color face significant systemic, connected and compounding challenges in their education and career journeys.

That’s why Genentech and the Genentech Foundation support all stages of the education continuum, from Kindergarten to Careers, with a focus on students from historically excluded and underrepresented backgrounds so they are supported and empowered to pursue and thrive in careers in science and medicine.

We do this through deep partnerships, mentoring, training, resources, and grants that:

  • Build excitement about science with elementary and middle school students;

  • Scale industry-aligned career exploration in high school;

  • Provide wrap-around and financial support to students in undergraduate studies; and

  • Invest in bridge programs into graduate education in healthcare and medical fields;

  • Invest in promising models to recruit, retain and advance the next generation of diverse post-docs

Health Equity

Inequity in our healthcare system is an urgent issue.

For far too long, Black, Latinx and other historically marginalized groups have suffered vastly disparate health outcomes and haven’t had a seat at the table in important clinical decisions. Health inequities are complex and multifaceted—related to social determinants of health, barriers to healthcare access, affordability, and quality, and strongly related to whether the healthcare workforce is diverse, inclusive and culturally and structurally competent. We believe that to make progress in addressing health equity, we must invest at multiple levels -both “upstream,” on prevention, and “downstream,” on issues related to the healthcare talent pipeline, clinical research and care delivery environments and patient and community support.

To advance a more fair and just healthcare system, we are using our giving to address some of the biggest drivers of inequity by:

  • Reducing the impact of childhood adversity – abuse, racism, and other forms of trauma – that contribute to increased disease risk through The Resilience Effect;
  • Incubating transformational solutions to advance health equity, with a focus on that:
    • Advancing inclusive research by supporting new approaches to strengthen patient and community voice, power, and engagement in research and care.
    • Promoting equity in care by building accountability, capacity, and community partnerships to eliminate disparities in care delivery
    • Workforce diversity and inclusion, by investing in promising models to recruit, retain, and advance the next generation of diverse healthcare and scientific talent, and healthcare education and training to mitigate bias, build empathy, and improve the patient experience.
  • Increasing patient access to information and high-quality care, including early diagnosis, comprehensive education, support services, medicine, and financial assistance.

Independent Co-pay Assistance Foundation Charitable Support

As part of our commitment to the health and wellbeing of all patients, Genentech supports patients who cannot afford their out of pocket costs for medicines through donations to independent co-pay assistance foundations. More information about our eligibility requirements and funding restrictions for this type of funding can be found here.

Community Giving

We invest in partnerships and empower our employees to help our local communities thrive.

We’re proud members of the communities where we live and work, and we believe we can have the greatest impact by focusing our efforts at the local level—through our charitable giving and by empowering employees to volunteer their time and talent.

Our employees are passionate about giving back, and share their skills and expertise through local partnerships with schools and community-based organizations across six of our U.S. sites (South San Francisco, Oceanside and Vacaville, CA; Louisville, KY and Hillsboro and Portland, OR). They also amplify their giving through our employee donation and volunteer matching programs.