CDM Smith Cares

The CDM Smith Cares program encourages employee-led volunteer outreach activities that build community and improve quality of life through local efforts. Our employees have a strong commitment to helping communities - our own and those in need around the world. We are active, caring citizens who contribute thousands of hours annually to civic and charitable causes. We are global citizens, answering the call of those in distressed communities, helping others to help themselves, and creating legacies of hope for future generations. 

 The goal of En­gi­neers With­out Bor­ders (EWB) is to make an im­pact to those com­mu­ni­ties that seek help by en­gag­ing with them di­rectly to finding options for solving their prob­lems or meet­ing their basic needs. CDM Smith has been an official corporate partner of Engineers Without Borders - USA since 2007.

This part­ner­ship pro­vides sup­port in the fol­low­ing areas:

• Safer drink­ing water


• Ap­pro­pri­ate and im­proved san­i­ta­tion


• Cross­ing difficult or unsafe terrain


• Flood mit­i­ga­tion and/or ero­sion con­trol


• Im­prov­ing farm­ing and pro­duc­tion ca­pa­bil­i­ties


• Pro­vid­ing con­sis­tent, re­li­able en­ergy

This com­mu­nity-dri­ven de­vel­op­ment ap­proach by EWB-USA while fos­ter­ing our fu­ture lead­ers is an ex­cel­lent match for CDM Smith and all its em­ploy­ees. The firm and our employees support EWB-USA financially and most importantly, our employees volunteer their time and ex­pertise on pro­gram and pro­ject teams. For em­ploy­ees that di­rectly par­tic­i­pate, they can re­ceive grant funds for their ef­forts. In ad­di­tion, our em­ploy­ees lead local chap­ters, serve on com­mit­tees, and or­ga­nize fundrais­ing events to sup­port the work.

Since the in­cep­tion of our pro­gram in 2007, we have funded 34 travel grants to­tal­ing in $162,000 to sup­port our em­ploy­ees’ vol­un­teer ef­forts on EWB-USA pro­jects around the world.

CDM Smith and our em­ploy­ees sup­port Water for Peo­ple, an in­ter­na­tional hu­man­i­tar­ian or­ga­ni­za­tion of ded­i­cated peo­ple who rec­og­nize water as a pri­mary build­ing block of life. Each year, our an­nual giv­ing cam­paign raises funds to help de­vel­op­ing com­mu­ni­ties gain ac­cess to safe drink­ing water, bet­ter san­i­ta­tion, and pub­lic health ed­u­ca­tion.

There are more than 1.8 bil­lion peo­ple lack­ing ac­cess to safe water and 2.4 bil­lion lack­ing ac­cess to ad­e­quate san­i­ta­tion. This prob­lem di­rectly con­tributes to the end­less cycle of ex­treme poverty that has dev­as­tat­ing ef­fects on so­ci­ety. Not only do our two or­ga­ni­za­tions share the same be­lief that every human being de­serves last­ing ac­cess to safe water and san­i­ta­tion, but our em­ploy­ees are mo­ti­vated by the same set of core val­ues. It is this align­ment of mis­sion and promise of qual­ity of life that for­ti­fies our partnership.