The GE Fund helps talented students go to college and ensures they have access to quality education once they get there. The fund starts supporting students early, funding innovative programmes to improve education at elementary and secondary schools throughout the United States.

The GE Fund believes that hands-on participation in the arts develops creative, disciplined and resourceful leaders. The GE Fund also supports quality education programmes around the world. In the sphere of public policy the fund seeks to educate opinion leaders on critical issues such as trade, the environment and work force development.

The fund's commitment to United Way goes beyond employee campaigns and financialcontributions. The GE also claims to have invented the corporate matching gift programme, now used by more than 1,000 corporations.

`We Bring Good Things to Life' is more than an advertising slogan at GE. It's volunteering more than one million hours a year to help young people. It's inventing the entire concept of employee gift-matching, which has produced more than $2 billion in giving for America's colleges and universities over the past 45 years. It's partnering with the National Park Service to restore one of America's great treasures.

GE employees and retirees work more than double the number of students attending college from disadvantaged communities. The fund has started a legal services programme to assist local non-profit agencies. It also provides resources for grass-roots efforts that make daily life more manageable for those in greatest need.

The fund claims that it has dramatically increased the number of women and minority faculty members at American universities. The GE Fund isspreading the concept of volunteerism around the world. It is also supporting innovative programmes that promise to improve education on all levels.

The company provides innovative products and services ranging from sophisticated medical diagnostic imaging machines that save lives to creative lending and training programmes that assist small businesses. The men and women of GE do much more than their `day jobs'. The company's philanthropic foundation develops and supports programmes that are making a difference around the world. GE Elfun -- 40,000 employees and retirees united in the spirit of volunteerism -- provides the arms and legs for many of these efforts.

-- WWW