{"id":20559,"date":"2023-08-09T20:19:25","date_gmt":"2023-08-09T20:19:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thinkadvisor.com\/2023\/08\/09\/jackson-aims-to-lift-families-from-poverty-to-financial-well-being\/"},"modified":"2023-08-09T20:19:25","modified_gmt":"2023-08-09T20:19:25","slug":"jackson-aims-to-lift-families-from-poverty-to-financial-well-being","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/2023\/08\/09\/jackson-aims-to-lift-families-from-poverty-to-financial-well-being\/","title":{"rendered":"Jackson Aims to Lift Families From Poverty to Financial Well-Being"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Corporate philanthropy can take myriad forms and directions. At Jackson, \u201cThe goal is to provide a pathway and pull families out of generational poverty to financial well-being and economic opportunity,\u201d Danielle Robinson<\/a>, assistant vice president of corporate philanthropy and executive director of the Jackson Charitable Foundation, tells ThinkAdvisor in an interview.<\/p>\n

One aspect that sets Jackson apart is the critical role that employees play in corporate giving, which spans volunteer work at community organizations and serving on nonprofit boards.<\/p>\n

Winner of a 2022 ThinkAdvisor LUMINARIES award<\/a> for Community Impact, Robinson established Jackson\u2019s first corporate responsibility program and by 2017 had launched the Jackson Charity Foundation to advance financial education throughout the country.<\/p>\n

Since then, the firm has awarded more than $80 million in grants and matching gifts to nonprofits and has reached more than 10 million students through its financial literacy<\/a> efforts.<\/p>\n

In 2020 and 2021, under Robinson\u2019s leadership, the firm supported more than 300 charities.<\/p>\n

She joined Jackson \u2014 which markets annuities for individuals and fixed income products for institutional investors \u2014 after graduating from Michigan State University in 2006 and immediately began making philanthropic impact in the Lansing, Michigan, community on behalf of Jackson.<\/p>\n

She oversees the charitable contributions the company makes there, where its headquarters are located, as well as from the firm\u2019s offices in Nashville, Tennessee, and Chicago.<\/p>\n

One of her numerous responsibilities (\u201cI literally work from 7 to 7! I\u2019ve always been a high-energy person\u201d) is heading the philanthropic component of the company\u2019s environmental, social and governance<\/a> efforts, as well as managing Jackson\u2019s annual ESG report.<\/p>\n

Robinson leads a six-person team that has formed long-term relationships with nonprofits to advance Jackson\u2019s goal of helping people achieve \u201cfinancial freedom for life,\u201d as she frames it.<\/p>\n

The company has contributed $750,000 \u2014 a combination of corporate gifts and employee contributions \u2014 to underwrite the Jackson Volunteer Center at Greater Lansing Food Bank\u2019s new expanded facility. It will allow the organization to distribute a planned 18 million meals in 2025.<\/p>\n

ThinkAdvisor recently held a phone interview with Robinson, who was speaking from Lansing.<\/p>\n

Words to live by for this high-energy executive are: \u201cLook around the company for needs and see if you can help to solve them,\u201d she says, adding, \u201cIt\u2019s brought me lots of opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here are highlights of our interview:<\/p>\n

THINKADVISOR: What\u2019s the objective of Jackson\u2019s philanthropic program?<\/strong><\/p>\n

DANIELLE ROBINSON<\/strong>: Overall, the idea is to find a way to be connected to the community, contribute to it and help it become successful.<\/p>\n

Our approach to giving is geared to having meaningful, long-term relationships with nonprofits that build the foundation for helping people achieve financial freedom for life.<\/p>\n

What distinguishes Jackson\u2019s program?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A differentiator is that our associates [aka all employees] play a critical role in Jackson\u2019s philanthropy. They\u2019re at the heart of helping us on our grants review committee, making recommendations for funding [and so on].<\/p>\n

[Eighty-one of] our associates serve on nonprofit boards [mainly in Lansing, Chicago and Nashville].<\/p>\n

And our associates volunteer regularly at organizations. Their time there helps multiply the impact of our philanthropy dollars.<\/p>\n

What are Jackson\u2019s giving priorities?<\/strong><\/p>\n

They focus on what it takes to build a strong family, to help families strengthen and stabilize and also to provide funding for economic opportunities \u2014 like job-skills training, financial education, coaching and even wealth-building, like homeownership programs.<\/p>\n

The goal is to provide a pathway and pull families out of generational poverty to financial well-being and economic opportunity.<\/p>\n

During the height of the coronavirus pandemic, Jackson did something unusual to help address food insecurity across the country. Please explain.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The dining center kitchen in our Nashville office was available, but the staff had no one to cook for because all employees were working from home.<\/p>\n

Nashville Food Project<\/a>, a nonprofit, was, because of social distancing, in need of more kitchen space to create food kits they were sending to students.<\/p>\n

So we loaned out our kitchen and kitchen staff and did about 4,500 box lunches for students during that summer.<\/p>\n

Great! What did Jackson do amid the pandemic that directly addressed the company\u2019s business?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our sales team all over the country was limited from meeting in person with the financial advisors they would normally meet with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Corporate philanthropy can take myriad forms and directions. At Jackson, \u201cThe goal is to provide a pathway and pull families out of generational poverty to financial well-being and economic opportunity,\u201d Danielle Robinson, assistant vice...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[1],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/jackson-aims-to-lift-families-from-poverty-to-financial-well-being.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20559"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}