We care about helping everyone in our community build a better future. For almost half of our residents, Hawaii’s high cost of living continues to keep many dreams out of reach. In order to understand financial hardship in Hawaii, and to be able to channel resources to assist, Bank of Hawaii was pleased to partner with Hawai‘i Community Foundation and Kamehameha Schools to help fund the research and publication of Aloha United Way’s ALICE Report. (ALICE stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed.)

This is only one example of our commitment to the community. Whether through sponsorships of important programs, funding affordable housing projects, hands-on partnerships of our Bankoh Blue Crew volunteers with local nonprofits or raising funds to support organizations in accomplishing their vision, providing support is part of our DNA. We’ve been helping the community for than 125 years, and we’re committed to finding new ways to make a difference.

Our community support in 2018 reflected the wide range of interests of our employees and the needs of our community. On the following pages are three examples.

Total Employee Giving
More than $7 million since 2007 to more than 200 local nonprofits

Community Walk 2018
$138,043
12 nonprofits including neighbor islands and Guam

Giving Campaign 2018
$760,132
23 nonprofits

Volunteerism
14,318 hours
166 events

Bank of Hawaii, its Foundation and employees contributed approximately $3,470,000 in 2018 to 400 organizations.

Bank of Hawaii recognizes that our diversity makes us stronger and is essential to our ability to serve our clients, fulfill our purpose and drive responsible growth. We also recognize the potential of every employee by actively encouraging a diverse and inclusive workplace — in thought, style, sexual orientation, gender identity, race, ethnicity, disability, culture and experience.

During Pride Month, we celebrated the impact LGBTQ+ individuals have had on our company and the communities we serve by sponsoring the Honolulu Pride Parade & Festival, in which 300 bank employees, family and friends marched along with the bank’s float. The Honolulu Pride Parade & Festival is Hawaii’s largest LGBTQ event, a culmination of two weeks of festivities for the LGBTQ community, friends, families and allies.

In addition, the bank continued its sponsorship of the annual Honolulu Rainbow Film Festival (HRFF), which promotes LGBTQ equality by creating, sharing and protecting LGBTQ stories for the screen.

In August, the bank sponsored an equality-themed event at the Honolulu Museum of Art, complete with giant #PRIDE letters.

The bank’s diverse and inclusive workplace has always been a key part of its success and makes us better at what we do.

Caring for our island environment while moving forward in a sustainable way so that people and nature can thrive is important to the bank, to our customers and to our employees. Not only does Bank of Hawaii implement energy efficiencies in its facilities, but our Bankoh Blue Crew volunteers regularly partner in activities to improve the environment. In 2018, two of these Live Kōkua community service projects inspired a big turnout of employees who made a positive impact.

In June, more than 110 BOH volunteers were joined by Hawaiian Airlines employees for a day of community work at Paepae o He‘eia Fishpond. From building up the fishpond walls to weeding invasive mangroves, the volunteers worked to preserve the 800-year-old fishpond so it can be used and sustained for another 800 years.

In September, more than 930 volunteers from Bank of Hawaii, Hawaiian Airlines, Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii and other local nonprofits partnered to sift out micro-plastics from beach sand, and cleaned debris from miles of beaches and canals along the Waimanalo coastline of Oahu. Bank of Hawaii’s 13th annual Community Service Day was the biggest community service project in the program’s history, including employees, families and friends across the state and West Pacific Region, who participated in coastal cleanup initiatives in their areas. Together, 6,240 pounds of trash, debris and micro-plastics were removed from the shorelines.

For one week in June, 26 BOH employees helped prepare for the implementation of a unique online financial education program, which Bank of Hawaii made available to eighth-grade students at Central Middle School. The bank partnered with EVERFI, an innovative education technology company, to provide a nine module financial education program with interactive lessons that covers the basics of budgeting and saving, as well as how to manage money while in college and beyond.

In preparation for the upcoming lessons, BOH volunteers helped set up new Chromebooks at Central Middle School for the students and introduced the EVERFI lesson plans. Bank of Hawaii also made this digital learning experience available to students at McKinley and Kaimuki high schools.

In 2018, BOH employees volunteered more than 6,500 hours to provide financial education outreach to students in elementary, middle school and high school classrooms across Hawaii and the Western Pacific, plus time served on nonprofit boards. Providing customized financial education is one of the many ways that we focus our efforts to meet the community development needs in the places we serve, earning us an “outstanding” rating in consecutive CRA evaluations from the Federal Reserve Board since 1997.