Whirlpool puts washing machines in schools and attendance climbs — Care Counts

Whirlpool's brand purpose celebrates the everyday acts of care that appliances enable, and research gave it a target: kids who lack clean clothes are far more likely to skip school, and chronic absenteeism is a strong predictor of dropping out. The question Whirlpool set out to answer was whether something as simple as laundry could move something as consequential as attendance.

Put washers and dryers inside schools and link each load to a student: instead of rewarding attendance, remove the laundry barrier that quietly keeps kids home.

In the fall of 2015 Whirlpool and DigitasLBi launched the Care Counts pilot in Fairfield, California and St. Louis, installing donated washers and dryers in 17 schools and giving students access to clean clothes during the school day. Special data-collection devices on each machine attributed every wash to a specific student, so Whirlpool could compare attendance and classroom performance with the previous school year over a full academic term, and teachers were surveyed on classroom effects.

The first year, more than 93% of participating students saw attendance rise versus the previous year, and students who had missed more than 10 days cut their absences by almost two weeks. Teacher surveys reported 89% of students improved classroom participation, 95% were more motivated in class, and 95% took part in more extracurricular activities. Whirlpool's Bill Beck said attendance went up and the schools came alive with a new vibrancy.

Whirlpool's brand promise has long been that everyday acts of care — cooking, cleaning, washing — matter. In the mid-2010s its marketers found a way to prove that claim with a social problem: research showed students are significantly more likely to skip school when they don't have clean clothes, and kids who regularly miss school are far more likely to drop out. Most attendance programs tried to reward showing up; Whirlpool instead asked whether removing the laundry barrier could enable it.

In the fall of 2015 Whirlpool and DigitasLBi launched Care Counts, installing donated washers and dryers in 17 schools across Fairfield, California and St. Louis. Students could wash clothes whenever they needed to during the school day. Each machine carried a data-collection device that attributed every load to a specific student, letting the brand measure the link between clean clothes, attendance and classroom performance across a full school year — and teachers were surveyed on what they observed in class.

The pilot reported that more than 93% of participating students improved their attendance over the previous year, with high-absentee students cutting their absences by almost two weeks. Teachers said 89% of students participated more in class, 95% were more motivated, and 95% joined more extracurricular activities. The results turned a brand-purpose experiment into a national program and a reference case for how a company can tie a social outcome to its own product's meaning.

It attacked the cause of absenteeism — no clean clothes — instead of bribing the symptom.

Connecting each wash to a student gave Whirlpool measurable proof of the brand's 'everyday care' promise.

Schools became more welcoming places for families, so the fix strengthened the institution, not just one metric.

The program was built from the brand's own machines, making the social good inseparable from what Whirlpool sells.

Don't design rewards for the behavior you want; design resources that remove the reasons it doesn't happen — clean clothes lifted attendance where incentives had been the standard answer.

The pilot's results pushed Whirlpool to expand Care Counts nationally, adding a partnership with Teach For America to put machines in as many schools as possible. The work won 2017 North American Effies in Branded Utility and Positive Change – Social Good, and Adweek honored it with its Gravity Award for creative innovation, while the data-driven approach became a model for tying brand purpose to measurable social outcomes.