Topic: Economic opportunity

Investing in employee well-being: innovative policies and benefits

Investing in employee well-being: innovative policies and benefits

CURATED COLLECTION
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The COVID-19 pandemic served as catalyst for employers to invest more deeply and creatively in employee wellbeing, driven by fundamental changes to workplaces (e.g. remote work), implications for healthcare, family and childcare support, financial outlook, and more. Simultaneously, increased focus on racial justice and equity has heightened private sector commitments to inclusive workplace policies for marginalized communities. More recently, policy changes in the U.S. –  including the overturn of Roe v. Wade and the “childcare cliff” – have escalated the need for employers to increase benefits that supplement lack of government supports. 

Employees and companies alike are placing workplace wellbeing higher on their priority lists. 91% of employees find that their job plays a role in determining their wellbeing, and 57% report seriously considering quitting for a more supportive workplace. 76% of U.S. executives feel that expectations about workforce wellbeing are higher than in previous years, and 87% say that workforce wellbeing gives their company a competitive advantage. In addition to productivity and retention advantages, companies with higher employee wellbeing scores fare better financially, showing a superior return on assets, higher profits, and higher valuations.

When balanced with other core aspects of employee experience (including leadership behaviors and job design), inclusive employee policies and benefits can play a significant role in supporting holistic wellbeing. This Curated Collection provides the business rationale for and innovative examples of private sector wellbeing policies and benefits across five key areas: reproductive health, family care, paid leave, financial wellbeing, and mental health.

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Employee Impact

Pathways to Economic Opportunity: Dow Last Mile Fund for Manufacturing & Skilled Trades

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

As wealth and income inequality continue to climb in the United States, some employers are developing innovative models and catalytic partnerships designed to bring new skills, job access, and ultimately economic opportunity to financially vulnerable and historically marginalized individuals.

In a new interview series, Pathways to Economic Opportunity, NationSwell is taking a closer look at some of the solutions companies are pursuing in service of leveling the playing field and expanding their talent pipelines. In spotlighting some of these partnerships, this series hopes to uncover the “secret sauce” that makes these solutions successful for the benefit of other employers and their leaders.

For the first installment of the series, NationSwell spoke to Ruthe Farmer — founder & CEO of the Last Mile Education Fund — and Fabio Mendes, Global Citizenship Manager at Dow — about their talent pipeline partnership, the Dow Last Mile Fund for Manufacturing & Skilled Trades. 

Here’s what they had to say:

Bird’s Eye View:

The Last Mile Education Fund works to identify students in the “last mile” of their education journeys and provide them with no-strings-attached, grants to help them overcome any financial hurdles standing in the way of the finish line. Through its partnership with Dow, Last Mile recently expanded its scope to include grants of up to $5,000 for low-income students specifically nearing completion in manufacturing and skilled trades programs at institutions in Dow communities.

Fast Stats: 

  • Launched in 2023, the Dow Last Mile Fund for Manufacturing & Skilled Trades currently services talent populations in ten key markets: California, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia.
  • On average, the grants Last Mile awards are less than $4,200. Unlike traditional education grants, Last Mile’s investment model specifically incentivizes the use of the money in any area a student needs it, including groceries, gas, childcare, or anything else serving as a roadblock to completing their education.
  • Founded in 2019, Last Mile has awarded more than 5,132 grants to date. Grantees are 42% Black, 19% Hispanic or Latinx, 12% Asian, 16% White, and 1% Indigenous.
  • Last Mile awards three types of core grants, all of which manufacturing and skilled trades students are eligible for: rapid-response emergency financial assistance (mini-grants); bridge grants; and larger Last Mile grants.

1) NationSwell: What helps to differentiate Last Mile’s approach from some of the existing investment models designed to support educational attainment? 

Ruthe Farmer, Last Mile: 

I sometimes refer to our model as universal basic income for students. Scholarships are typically for tuition, housing, maybe some books, but there are other parts of life that require financial resources, too. I just approved a Dow grantee who has been on a long journey of trying to cross the finish line in her education, but the cost of living — medical bills, insurance, all the things that are not part of the scholarship landscape — had just become too much.

She also shared that she had an old laptop from 2017 that was barely functioning and needed a better device. Those are the kinds of gaps that Last Mile fills — the same gaps that are sometimes filled by a student’s parents. 

The other thing we do differently is that there are no deadlines; the application is rolling, and students can apply any day, all year. We’re not comparing the students against each other, we’re looking at them as individuals. 

We’re also very fast. If a student is facing a housing or a food crisis, they cannot wait months to hear back from a scholarship. Many scholarships can be really wonderful, but it takes months of process to get selected — they’re not designed to address immediate, pressing, basic human needs, which is what we’re doing. 

2) NationSwell: Adaptability, open communication — are there any other key lessons that you’d like to impart on other nonprofits or companies hoping to form a similar type of synergy? 

Ruthe Farmer, Last Mile: 

There’s been tremendous participation and engagement by the local Dow team members. We’re not physically on the ground in all of those communities, but they are, and they have relationships with, you know, the local colleges and institutions. They have relationships with the local chamber of commerce and the local media, and they also have relationships with the folks that are already in their apprentice pathways.

Fabio Mendes, Dow:

Like Ruthe said, we took an existing model that was initially for computer science graduates and we said, “Hey, maybe this could be a fit for skilled trade students, which are completely different.” 

When working with four-year graduates, Last Mile usually works with them on the last two years of their educational journey. So initially we were working with that same mindset for skilled trades, but along the way we realized those audiences had very different needs, so we switched to supporting students from the very beginning. That openness to adapting the program to a different set of needs in real-time — that has been one of the great successes of this partnership so far. 

3) NationSwell: What are some of the biggest roadblocks you’ve encountered?

Fabio Mendes, Dow:

I think one of the things we realized early on is that a lot of times the students don’t necessarily think this program is for real.

Ruthe Farmer, Last Mile: 

We’re so different from what students understand scholarships to be that they can sometimes be very skeptical. I remember one grantee told me that she had let that application sit on her desktop for three weeks because she was ashamed to ask for help, she didn’t think we would say yes. And then when she finally did, we were like, oh, absolutely, yes, here’s the money. Four months later, she’s graduated and she’s in a full-time job.

We don’t have any kind of GPA gatekeeping, your grades are not a factor in whether or not we say yes to you. The only thing we’re interested in is, are you enrolled and are you on track to get this program finished? 

We’ve had to re-train the educators, too, because they’ve been taught to only send their select best students for these opportunities. We want every student who is striving to have the resources they need to finish; we see value in every striving student. Getting over that hump has been a really big challenge. 

4) NationSwell: What have been some of your most significant learnings or unlocks in the course of doing this work?

Fabio Mendes, Dow:

I think one of our biggest learnings from Last Mile has been the perspective that a life-changing investment in a student doesn’t need to be gigantic — it can be a $200 grant that you promote to someone because they don’t have food for the day, and that alone could lead to them completing the course that they are on, completing the major that they’re in, and potentially securing a life-sustaining job in the future. 

Ruthe Farmer, Last Mile:

I would say the thesis that we’re trying to prove is that there is better ROI when we invest in what we call “striving students” versus the historically dominant model of rewarding outliers for prior success. If you only pick the students who have the best grades, the best GPA, have never missed a class, then you’re picking the ones who can afford that, and you’re not recognizing the immense value and problem-solving skills of a person who has struggled and persisted. 

I think a company that figures out how to bring that talent into their workforce is going to be building an incredibly strong, resilient workforce, which is what all innovation-based companies need.  

5) NationSwell: What are some of the ways this partnership is mutually beneficial — how do each of your organizations work together to advance a shared goal? 

Ruthe Farmer, Last Mile:

Our partnership with Dow is unique in that we’re specifically targeting students that physically go to school and live in Dow communities, where Dow is one of the biggest employers in the field in which they are studying. This is very specific: Dow is helping you graduate in a Dow community, hopefully into a Dow job. 

It’s not a direct ask for the students, but we do have that expectation that they become at least an available pipeline for the company. That’s one of the reasons we’re geographically focused with this funding. 

It’s a great example of the spirit of our work: It’s local investment to solve local workforce issues, and you’re really investing in your own local economy. It’s really kind of working hand-in-hand to solve this gap in tech and skills, but then simultaneously investing in communities. 

6) NationSwell: What’s one call to action that you’d like other leaders or organizations like yours to heed as they consider their own opportunities to improve educational attainment and economic mobility? 

Fabio Mendes, Dow:

I’d say to be more creative around some of these things. One of the crucial things Last Mile did was immediately ask how they could make the student support process more accessible. They could have just thought, let’s do a scholarship program for low-income students that have struggled throughout their journey. At Dow, we were creative in thinking that if this was designed for one specific audience, maybe we could apply the same mindset to a different audience. 

I also want to say you don’t have to start big, you can just start with a pilot. We started with a small fund in select communities with very different perspectives and contexts, and we said, let’s see if this works out, then we expanded it. 

Ruthe Farmer, Last Mile:

I think my call to action is simply for everyone to please take an abundance viewpoint as to who has the potential to be successful in your organization, and in the field broadly, whatever your field is.

•

Place-Based Impact in Practice: 36 hours in Tulsa with NationSwell and George Kaiser Family Foundation

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

On the evening of October 18th, black clouds of starlings wheeled overhead as the NationSwell team made its way to meet a group of partners and leaders in downtown Tulsa. The group had gathered as part of our Place-Based Impact Collaborative for an immersive, 1.5-day experience designed to explore how community-centered investment and strategic partnerships are working in concert to give new strength to Tulsa. 

The insights and best practices we gathered from GKFF’s approach — and from the experts in attendance — were many, and can better enable communities nationwide to thrive. Although it’s impossible to accurately capture and convey the profound experience of being on the ground in Tulsa, our hope is that this piece can shed some light on what it was like to come together and learn with an incredible group of leaders and inspire you as you strengthen your own community-centered, place-based work.

Day One

The day began with a tour at Greenwood Rising to hear the vital stories at the core of Tulsa’s history and identity: the impact the Trail of Tears, the systems of anti-Blackness that fomented the Race Massacre of 1921, and the cultural reverberations of both eras that are still being felt throughout the city. Despite the violence dotting its past, Tulsa and its residents have persisted — deepening their sense of community and establishing a rich sense of place and culture that makes the city vibrant and unique.

That night, we joined our hosts from George Kaiser Family Foundation for a welcome reception at a speakeasy in the city’s Deco District. After an evening of warm conversation, introductions, and getting to know one another better as we prepared for the next day, Aaron Miller — head of partnerships at inTulsa — announced that he would lead a group by bus to celebrate the city’s popular Oktoberfest, currently in its 44th year. Jonathan Pride, executive director at NPower, announced that he planned to lead a competing group to the same location via the city’s widely-available Lime scooters.

Day Two

East Tulsa


After a quick pit stop for breakfast on Thursday morning, our group set out by bus for East Tulsa, where white flight and the attendant infrastructural divestment have created unlikely opportunities for the city’s growing immigrant population. 

Cynthia Jasso — a program officer on the Vibrant and Inclusive Tulsa team — explained that East Tulsa has become a community hub, learning center, and worker community for newly-arrived immigrants, more than 1,100 of whom arrive at the Plaza Santa Cecilia from Mexico by bus each week. While organizations like Growing Together have done grassroots outreach to meet residents where they are — helping to expand access to vaccines and make PPP loan applications easier for local businesses owners — they ultimately found that there was an overwhelming need for a centralized community hub where people could get the help that they needed. Plaza Santa Cecilia has become that epicenter — a place for the community to gather, relax, take classes, shop, or even acquire permits.


The plaza features beautiful murals, restaurants, and a nightclub, and has become a major source of community pride and belonging — a critical metric of success for place-based investment. 

North Tulsa


Our next stop was in North Tulsa, where attendees heard from Pastor Philip Abode of Crossover Community Impact and Crossover Bible Church. A former University of Tulsa football player and current high school football coach, Abode’s passion for coaching youth eventually catalyzed an even deeper relationship to mentorship in the city: he now serves as executive director of Crossover Preparatory Academy, which oversees several private middle schools throughout the city.

A majority-Black neighborhood, Tulsa’s north corridor is currently the site of major community development efforts, including a planned 500-unit, mixed-income housing project and new contracts with high-quality, high-paying manufacturing jobs at companies that agree to recruit from within the neighborhood (and nearby Tulsa Technology Center). 

Kendall Whittier


As the bright sun continued to warm up the day, we visited Kendall Whittier Park — located in Tulsa’s historic Kendall Whittier neighborhood — where we learned more about how a mixed-income neighborhood trust has helped  provide stable, affordable housing, and how partners like Growing Together and Tulsa Educare have created educational opportunities and green spaces where children and families can grow and thrive. 

We also had the opportunity to tour The Gathering Place, which words alone don’t really do justice. A sprawling 66.5-acre green space nestled against the Arkansas River, The Gathering Place’s pathways were dotted with pumpkins and its playgrounds had names like “Land of the River Giants,” “Fairyland Forest,” and “Volcanoville.” All park activities are free, and guests can help themselves to kayaks and paddle boats, attend concerts on the lawn, and engage with the park’s many educational programs. 


After lunch, we reconvened at Greenwood Cultural Center for a series of panel discussions — first on how to leverage the power of storytelling, and then on how new models of collaboration across the public, private, and philanthropic sectors can help to foster opportunity from the ground up.

During the first panel, Jasmine Dellafosse — Director of Organizing and Community Engagement at EPIC — spoke about the value of telling the stories that run counter to our assumptions. 

“What are the stories we don’t know, and in whose interest is it that we don’t know them?” she asked. 

Panelist Vanessa Garrison — Co-founder and COO of GirlTrek — further emphasized the power storytelling holds in developing a community: deconstructing myths, challenging assumptions and enabling community members to lead change. 

In the second panel, a key insight that surfaced was the recognition that change doesn’t just take a longer grant cycle but can take generations to actualize. The question that emerges, then, is how do we integrate intergenerational change as a metric when measuring impact? 

At the intersection of both of these panels is the emerging understanding that how we measure impact in place-based philanthropy needs to evolve to incorporate more qualitative data, compelling us to reimagine what a thriving community really means.


After a visit to Archer Studios to learn about the Tulsa Artist Fellowship — and a ceramics activity with fellow Raphael Corzo — participants had a few minutes to rest and recharge before coming together for a NationSwell Signature Dinner to reflect on the events and learnings of the day. 

Hosting us for the evening was the team at et al., a collective of chefs working collaboratively to “build a more delicious and equitable future for the food and beverage industry in Tulsa.” Aptly named to reflect the important but often overlooked or unknown people who help to make an ambitious vision into a reality, the symbolism behind et al.’s name and mission had a beautiful symmetry with the focus of our visit to Tulsa — and the patchwork of organizations and solutions we’d witnessed firsthand on the ground there. 


Attendees dove deep into what had inspired and moved them during the course of the meal, which was themed around the idea of breaking bread (as chef Colin Sato explained, “You have now broken bread with Tulsa, and now it’s a part of you”). There was a discussion of some of the central challenges to their own place-based work, with members laying out the approaches, tools, and new opportunities for partnership they were excited to bring back to their own communities. 

Like the chefs in et al.’s culinary collective, our time in Tulsa was distinguished by the patchwork of seemingly disparate, often undersung voices we heard from joining together to create a beautiful and undeniable chorus of solutions. While partners on the ground maintain different focuses in the work that they do and the neighborhoods they serve, everything in Tulsa has a certain harmony to it; the work comes together to hum like a well-oiled machine. As we packed up to leave on Friday, we couldn’t help but think about how this model of community impact — where every voice, program, and initiative happening on the ground is truly greater than the sum of its parts — has the potential to transform not only communities, but the world.

We’re so excited to have plans for more in-person, immersive experiences in the works for the near future. This incredible experience was part of our Place-Based Impact Collaborative. Our Collaborative model is based on the idea that the challenges we face call for collaboration and shared action to achieve the impact we seek on a variety of issue areas. Together, with cross-sector leaders, we illuminate challenges and opportunities in the space and align on action to advance each other’s work, and the field as a whole.

We encourage you to read more about our different Collaboratives and to contact us to get involved if you see one that resonates with you and your work. 

NationSwell Collaboratives are a new initiative convening cross-sector leaders to work in new ways on major issues affecting our lives, our nation, and our world. Learn more about our current offerings here.

Mapping the LER Ecosystem to Drive Equity

Mapping the LER Ecosystem to Drive Equity

CASE STUDIES
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Learning and employment records (LERs) are a vital solution to accelerating the uptake of skills-based hiring while empowering learners and earners to be recognized for their full set of skills from work, education, credentialing, service and life experiences. However, widespread use of LERs is often hindered by a lack of clarity and collaboration amongst the many necessary stakeholders, including employers, credential providers, learners and earners, and policy makers.

Therefore, Walmart brought NationSwell on to work with a Steering Committee of experts in the education, credentialing, equity and hiring space, to create an LER Ecosystem Map that would help people connect the dots across the ecosystem and more easily see how they can take action to drive equity through LERs.

Organizations in the LER Ecosystem Map Steering Committee:

  • AACRAO
  • Competency-Based Education Network
  • Digital Credentials Consortium
  • Digital Promise
  • JFFLabs
  • National Association of Workforce Boards
  • National Governors Association
  • SHRM Foundation
  • T3 Innovation Network
  • U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation

NationSwell worked closely with the Steering Committee to undertake thorough research to establish the goals and needs for the LER Ecosystem Map.

Through desk research, in-depth interviews, a diverse focus group, workshops, and months of cross-team collaboration, content drafting, design work and data visualization, our teams engaged 50+ individuals to help develop an interactive digital experience, accessible to stakeholders across the ecosystem, that clearly demonstrates opportunities for engagement, collaboration and action.

Through our three workstreams — establishing a hypothesis, research and development — the team discovered learnings, opportunities to drive adoption, and insights gaps that informed how the LER Ecosystem Map should come to life. The map launched at a pivotal point in LER development, providing many large and small players in the space with vital clarity on how to take action.

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Skilling the future workforce: 8 recs for corporate leaders

Skilling the future workforce: 8 recs for corporate leaders

EXECUTIVE BRIEFING
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Private sector engagement with skills-based hiring is increasing in response to employment gaps and escalating economic precarity. Between 2017 and 2019, 46% of middle-skill and 31% of high-skill occupations experienced material degree resets. And in 2022, 79% of HR professionals reported that scores on skills assessments are just as or more important than traditional criteria in hiring decisions.

These are positive trends from an economic and a social perspective. Skills-based hiring is critical to increasing equity and diversity in the workplace, as traditional credential-based hiring tends to screen out, disqualify, or exclude applicants without a four year degree.

While increased commitment to skills-based hiring is an important step toward a more prepared and more inclusive workforce, many companies are learning that in-demand skills do not exist in adequate supply. Some of those businesses are taking it upon themselves to develop the skill-based talent pipeline that will be necessary to power their organizations, industries, and broader market into the future.

To better understand how companies are investing in the skills-based training ecosystem, before hiring even comes into frame, we dug deep with nine organizations on the cutting edge of workforce development.

Through our conversations with leaders and practitioners, we uncovered a depth of contributions to changing and scaling the learning systems that are preparing workers for quality jobs. Our report compiles eight recommendations to provide guidance for private sector employers who are committed to skilling the future workforce and ultimately contributing meaningfully to a more just and equitable workplace. 

The eight recommendations:

 

  • Decide if you aim to be influential at a systems, sector, or company level
  • Position your strategy correctly within your company’s infrastructure
  • Lean into (and use) your company’s strengths
  • Build a well-balanced partner portfolio
  • Design for replicability and scalability
  • Mind the non-skills gap between learner and earner
  • Engage in pre-competitive transparency and collaboration
  • Bring rigor and patience to impact measurement
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Five Minutes With Taj Eldridge, Managing Director of Climate Innovation at Jobs for the Future

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

The NationSwell Council is made up of social impact-oriented leaders and changemakers who are committed to pioneering solutions in order to better their communities — and the world around them. In NationSwell’s latest series, “5 Minutes With…,” we sit down with members of our community whose exemplary leadership deserves a deeper dive. Here’s what Taj Eldridge, Managing Director of Climate Innovation at Jobs for the Future, had to share with us on green jobs, meeting the demand for a skilled workforce, and the power of dissenting thought:

NationSwell: What does the future of nature-inspired innovation look like, and what can we do to ensure that that future is as equitable and inclusive as possible?

Taj Eldridge, JFF: The future of climate tech looks like America. Here’s what I mean by that: Historically, we’ve thought of the idea of tech as something affiliated with Silicon Valley—Sand Hill Road and the Bay Area. Climate tech will be more about the entire country, with a local-to-global approach of providing tailored solutions to help our planet and, more importantly, every person living on it. This very idea of geographic diversity, along with programs like ‘Climate Resilient Employees for a Sustainable Tomorrow’(CREST) that we at JFF are managing, will ensure that this re-imagination of climate tech is both inclusive and equitable. 

NationSwell: How does the work you’re driving today help to build that future?

Taj Eldridge, JFF: CREST is a 5-year, $25 million project of the Ares Charitable Foundation led in partnership with JFFLabs at Jobs for the Future and the World Resources Institute. This work aims to close the gap between the demand for a skilled workforce for green jobs and the number of people prepared for these opportunities. It focuses on ensuring that people without traditional credentials and varied geographical representation are a priority in green job creation and training for this generation and the next. We recently released Growing Quality Green Jobs as part of CREST, which shares why a just transition requires removing limitations around how we define jobs and skills needed to build a climate-resilient workforce.

NationSwell: What inspires or motivates you — personally and professionally — to do this work?

Taj Eldridge, JFF: My motivation around this work comes from this idea I always mention on how climate change impacts us in three ways: the call for justice, personal wealth, and public health. 

The call for justice, for me, calls attention to the fact that communities that public and private institutions have underserved bear the brunt of the climate impact. But these communities are rarely involved in creating the solutions.   

The personal wealth aspect means that a large amount of funding is going towards this issue via climate tech and other career pathways; thus, green wealth is being accumulated. This capital accumulation has the opportunity to be more just and equitable. 

Lastly, what motivates me is how my own health was impacted by environmental factors growing up caused by climate change. While I was lucky to have a kidney transplant, there are still many others suffering from diseases and ailments caused by climate change. These three lenses motivate me to fulfill this purposeful work around climate change. 

NationSwell: What are some promising signs from the impact you’re driving?

Taj Eldridge, JFF: Through our work with CREST, we see technologies and solutions for the green economy developing outside the Bay Area, and growing in middle America, the South, and other regions directly affected by climate change. We are also expanding the definition of a green job, and developing research that indicates we can make every job of the future a green job in response to social and market opportunities.  

More generally, some of the promising signs include the excitement and willingness of others who want to partner to battle this disease our planet faces. I often mention the phrase “many hands make light work, ” a proverb about collaboration. I am hopeful about the collaborative possibilities raised by new technologies, new partners, and the younger generation’s moving forward regardless of the political and corporate winds. 

NationSwell: Finally, what are some of the challenges you’re facing? How can NationSwell’s social impact community of practice help you with those challenges?

Taj Eldridge, JFF: Some of the challenges for me are that, at times, the language used doesn’t match the intended actions. For example, I often hear the phrase “BIPOC,” but it seems the Indigenous community is left out of the national conversation about how we might utilize some of the solutions they have used for centuries. Similarly, we use this language to describe the “climate-friendly just transition” of going towards a climate-friendly future in the United States and Europe, but we fail to think about other nations, like the Congolese, who toil in mines to collect the very minerals needed to power our batteries. This presents a huge challenge for people to not only trust this transition but also actively participate in it.  

I think the NationSwell community can provide the resource that is just as needed and important as capital—human ingenuity and dissenting thought. We need the ingenuity to constantly think of solutions, as we are in the adolescence phase of our pathways towards a climate-friendly future. We also need the dissenters—to test our assumptions and challenge us to use that same ingenuity to find alternative pathways where ALL will have a just transition.  

Taj Eldridge is the Managing Director of Climate Innovation at Jobs for the Future, a national nonprofit that drives transformation of the U.S. education and workforce systems to achieve equitable economic advancement for all. If you’re interested in learning more, please get in touch.

ESG Next: An Interview With Citi’s Brandee McHale

Posted on by Greg Behrman

At a moment of unprecedented attention, investment, and opportunity for the emerging field of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), leaders are asking: Who is best preparing their organization for the society of the future? Who is innovating today to meet decades-long environmental and social goals? Who is setting standards that catalyze their industry’s change for the better? Who is defining what bold and aspirational look like — and how best to advance that work in practice?

Enter NationSwell’s ESG Next, an exemplary group of investors, executives, authors, philanthropists, social sector leaders, academics, and field builders who are helping to shape business as a force for social and environmental progress, advancing — and even pioneering — the most forward-thinking and effective programs, initiatives, technologies, methodologies, practices, and approaches.

For this installment, NationSwell interviewed Brandee McHale, Head of Community Investing and Development at Citi and President of Citi Foundation, about the unexpected challenges of headwinds becoming tailwinds, the necessity for leaders to break out of their echo chamber for inspiration, and why economic mobility is the foundation of her unlikely journey to the field of ESG.

Greg Behrman, CEO + Founder, NationSwell: Tell us how your professional and personal journey led to this work.

Brandee McHale, Head of Community Investing and Development at Citi and President of Citi Foundation: My work is at the intersection of traditional ESG, business, society, and philanthropy; I can’t believe I’m going to actually say these words, but I’ve been here for 30 years. 

I never thought that this was where I would land. When people hear that I’ve worked 30 years in the global financial services company, they naturally assume I came from Wharton or Harvard Business School — and while those are fantastic places, I actually don’t have a business background. In fact, I don’t even have a high school diploma.

I wasn’t on the path to economic success, and what really got me back on track was volunteering in my local community. Through volunteerism, I built a professional network — and I didn’t even know I was building one at the time. I just got very engaged with volunteering alongside the former mayor of the city where I’d grown up. And it was through giving back and being involved in volunteer service that actually built up my own confidence, and I began to see myself the way others saw me. I went back to school, I got my GED, and I answered some bulletin board ad for a summer internship at Citi in their corporate charitable giving department. 

Beyond that sense of service, what’s motivated me through the years is the knowledge that it should not have been as hard as it was for me to get from where I was to where I am today. We all have an interest in helping others, but my interest is in leveling the playing field to make it easier. There are far too many exit ramps on the path to economic opportunity — and there are far too few on-ramps. And that’s really how I’ve thought about my career. How do we build more on-ramps and shut down those off-ramps?

Behrman, NationSwell: How do you define this moment in ESG? Where are we, and where are we going? What’s the potential, and where are the pitfalls?

McHale, Citi: I tell my team all the time, this is our moment; let’s not blow it. We’ve lost the luxury of saying nobody’s focused on our issues, that we’re the lone voice here in the company. This is now front and center, and there’s a spotlight on us: we have a whole range of stakeholders, investors, employees, clients, and the public looking at ESG now. I think it’s okay for ESG practitioners to feel unnerved by the eyes that are suddenly on us. It can make you skeptical of everything you’re doing; it can even drive paralysis.

And especially in this moment of so much divisiveness, that paralysis is very real. If you try to please everybody, you’re going to please nobody. So you have to identify your North Star and fly consistently towards it. And I think if you stick with your values, while you’re not going to make everybody happy, you’ll have the ability to withstand any potential criticism. 

In the face of divisiveness, you have to be bold. And I’m excited to be bold. But I’m also clear-eyed about the fact that we are in the very early years of thinking differently about the purpose of the private sector — and its role in driving societal impact. For 20 years, the wind has been against me and my fellow practitioners. We all got really strong from flying against the headwind. But it’s a funny thing when all of a sudden the winds change, and suddenly it’s a tailwind and you should be flying farther and faster, but you actually feel more likely to fall because you don’t have the right kind of skills for this velocity.

Behrman, NationSwell: What’s different about how you lead? To which leadership practices do you attribute your effectiveness?

McHale, Citi: Our most important tool is our people — and that’s especially true when you’re an ESG practitioner. When you’re working in large companies, if you have a role that has something related to ESG in it, you probably had a job description that led you to believe that you would be spending your time externally focused.

But if we really want to have an impact, we are internal change agents. So while it may seem as though we are funding external change agents, what’s different and what I hope is the model that I’ve helped to develop, is that we see ourselves as change agents working across the company to influence, again, business practices, to influence strategies, to influence a focus on communities that have oftentimes been left behind, while also understanding how to partner with others externally so we can maximize impact. And to do that, you really need to build a team that feels empowered to use their voice. And in turn then we empower our company, many times not just to engage in actions, but to also use our voice and to ask, what is our commitment to an issue? 

And a great example of this, I think, is our work on racial equity. Like many companies, after the murder of George Floyd, we were searching for what we could do to make a difference. We did do some immediate philanthropic funding to civil rights organizations, but we knew that that was completely necessary, and insufficient. We realized that the real opportunity we have is to step back and ask, what is the specific role that financial institutions can play in racial equity? And for us, it was to look back and say part of what fuels racial injustice in the United States is the long-term perpetual racial wealth gap.

And while we’re very proud of the role that Citi Foundation has played on this issue philanthropically, philanthropy is insufficient to really address this issue. We’re working across the company in a comprehensive way to clarify what our role is in helping people get into the financial mainstream and accumulate financial wealth and assets.

In terms of leadership practice, I’m a big believer in purposefully making space that exists outside of your echo chamber. It’s something you have to practice actively; we tend to not realize we’re on autopilot, going to the same meetings, the same events, and the same conferences. This action can be something simple, like auditing who it is you tend to take your meetings with. But it can also mean getting out of the big cities. I’ve probably spent way too much time in my career thinking that the United States is New York, D.C., and California. It turns out, there’s a country in between these cities. And seeing how these communities approach economic mobility in ways that perhaps weren’t on your radar can give you that spark of inspiration that leaders are so often chasing. 

Behrman, NationSwell: What are some unique programs or initiatives you’re leading that other leaders may benefit from knowing?

McHale, Citi: I’m really proud of our work to help students get to and through college. We identified two primary barriers for students: the first is financial, and the second is navigating an increasingly complex system, especially if these students are the first in their family to attend college. 

To counter these barriers, we started a platform that supports initiatives opening up college savings accounts for young people. It’s an effort we’ve already begun scaling in San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, and Atlanta, with more locations to be announced soon. We initiated this approach a decade ago, and the first group of students from the San Francisco public school system is graduating this year. 

It’s an initiative that did more than just give kids accounts — it also changed the narrative around college for these communities from “if” to “when.” We’ve witnessed parents, kids, and family members depositing even small amounts into these accounts, and schools building a culture that focuses on college admissions — not just high school graduation.

The program in San Francisco, which is called Kindergarten to College, has become the framework for these initiatives. Some places even have similar Baby Bonds programs. They all aim to level the playing field by providing the same opportunities that a child born in a high-income family might have, such as a 529 account opened for them at birth.

It’s clear that schools aren’t bankers, and that’s why we’ve helped them by developing an online platform that allows school systems, or large youth-serving nonprofits, to manage the program. They can sign up kids, track deposits, and support families through the program. At the back end, we ensure the system works with various banking partners — whether it’s Citibank or a local community development credit union. This approach eliminates the need for everyone to reinvent the wheel, essentially creating a scalable “franchise” opportunity.
This solution was informed by our philanthropic work. We discovered that, while there is funding available for matched funds, unless programs can run efficiently, they will not be able to operate at scale. 

Another area is our Citi Impact Fund, which invests in double-bottom line companies. It’s important to remember that it’s not just about injecting capital — it’s about support. Providing post-investment support and assisting our portfolio companies to thrive, extend their networks, and boost their revenue-generating opportunities are of the utmost importance.

Though the Citi Foundation’s Community Progress Makers initiative, we offer core operating support grants of $500,000 each and say to grantees, “Go forth. We are not the experts here, you are. We trust you.” We’re not in the business of what I like to call “torturing” our grantees. 

Funding shouldn’t be onerous. Removing that red tape is part of our commitment to ensuring philanthropic capital is the most catalytic resource it can be. It should be the most flexible research and development money that’s out there. 

I’m also excited about the Foundation’s Global Innovation Challenge – Food Security, which is our first global open source effort, designed to improve food security and strengthening the financial health of low-income families and communities. 

The world is moving so quickly; and when it comes to food security, so many issues are interconnected — economic empowerment, financial health, supply chain. It excites me that we are now embracing the ways these issues are interconnected instead of focusing on just one component of them.  

Behrman, NationSwell: Who are some fellow leaders that are inspiring your leadership right now?

McHale, Citi: I’m inspired by the leadership of Kathleen Enright, CEO of the Council on Foundations. She’s tackling some of the hardest conversations in philanthropy today. Janice Bowdler went from the nonprofit sector at Unidos US  to the private sector with JPMC, and now she’s in public service as the Counselor to the Secretary at the U.S. Treasury on matters of racial equity. I absolutely love this multi-sector transition.In the impact investing space, the biggest rockstar is Melissa Bradley. When we were building our Impact Fund, she challenged us to be different – to stop talking and just do it differently. 

All of these women are fearless about giving the counterpoint to what someone may be saying.

Behrman, NationSwell: What are some books you’re reading, shows you’re watching, or podcasts you’re listening to that inspire and inform you?
McHale, Citi: For me, it’s really important to listen and learn from nonprofit leaders and change agents. I follow Financial Health Network’s Financial Pulse survey to keep up-to-date on the financial lives of everyday people around the country. I also really enjoy listening to Jennifer Tescher’s EMERGE Everywhere podcast, which focuses on financial health and breaking siloes between sectors.

To learn more about how our ESG Next honorees are shaping business as a force for social and environmental good, visit the series hub.

ESG Next: An Interview With Mastercard’s Shamina Singh

Posted on by Greg Behrman

At a moment of unprecedented attention, investment, and opportunity for the emerging field of ESG, leaders are asking: Who is best preparing their organization for the society of the future? Who is innovating today to meet decades-long environmental and social goals? Who is setting standards that catalyze their industry’s change for the better? Who is defining what bold and aspirational look like — and how best to advance that work in practice?

Enter NationSwell’s ESG Next, an exemplary group of investors, executives, authors, philanthropists, social sector leaders, academics, and field builders who are helping to shape business as a force for social and environmental progress, advancing — and even pioneering — the most forward-thinking and effective programs, initiatives, technologies, methodologies, practices, and approaches.

For this installment, NationSwell interviewed Shamina Singh, Founder and President of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and Executive Vice President of Sustainability at Mastercard. We spoke with Singh about the “S” in ESG, her commitment to continued learning and service, and the power of leaning into the urgency of the moment.

Greg Behrman, CEO + Founder, NationSwell: How would you make sense of this moment in ESG? 

Singh, Mastercard: It’s an exciting time for sure, but it’s a time that’s born out of crisis. We face monumental climate issues and rampant income inequality on a global scale. This moment demands that practitioners maintain focus on what we’re genuinely aiming to solve.

It’s encouraging to see everyone across the spectrum trying to figure out how to get it right; but as investors, companies, politicians, and governments are all grappling with what ESG means for them, we have to remember that each group has its own unique incentives and roles. The task at hand is balancing these different perspectives, creating a unified approach, and maintaining urgency among lots of different stakeholders. 

Behrman, NationSwell: How is the field of ESG evolving? What’s next?

Singh, Mastercard: What comes next is the private sector continuing to navigate an increasingly dynamic regulatory environment. Between the EU and the US, requirements for measuring corporate climate impact will require greater resourcing and administrative attention. At the same time, more communities are experiencing climate change directly and in real time, managing mitigation and adaptation simultaneously. It’s that intersection of climate change and the related economic impact that’s on the agenda now.

There’s broad agreement about how we measure an organization’s environmental factors and impact, but we’re still in the sense-making stage when it comes to social factors. Current measures don’t capture the impact of private sector initiatives like financial inclusion, relief and aid tied to the war in Ukraine, and the development of COVID-19 vaccines. The thinking about how to measure what businesses do in the social impact space keeps changing, so even companies that have been doing this work for a while face the shifting challenge of how to capture and report their impact. 

Looking forward, there’s an opportunity to embrace standardization around the ‘S.” If we don’t, and if it continues to shift, there’s a chance that practitioners might deprioritize these efforts, particularly as the regulatory focus on environmental factors continues.

We can apply the best practices that have been used to standardize environmental factors to communicate social impact measure — and that’s one of the things we’re proposing at the Center for Inclusive Growth: a framework for the social factors that mirrors the environmental, which might help companies and other stakeholders to tell their story around the ‘S’ as clearly as they do around the ‘E.’  

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Standard offers a model. In this protocol, Scope 1 covers the emissions that companies directly control, Scope 2 covers emissions associated with a company’s energy consumption, and Scope 3 covers the indirect emissions generated through the company’s supply chain.  We could use a parallel structure for social impact standards. Scope 1 could include the direct social impact of a company’s policies on its own employees. Scope 2 could account for how a company’s core competencies – like products, services, and work within supply chains — address societal challenges. And Scope 3 could encompass philanthropic giving, grants, and other community investments. 

This is a conceptual starting point, but the idea is to create a framework that quantifies the work companies are doing that provide a positive benefit to society.

Behrman, NationSwell: What’s unique about the work you’re leading? What are some approaches, strategies, or practices you’re deploying that other field builders should have visibility into?

Singh, Mastercard: There are three aspects of our work I’d like to call out. 

First is the unique framework we’ve established around creating impact. Though the Center is housed within Mastercard, we conduct independent research. It’s important to build our programs on an independent evidence base. The goal is to understand and utilize the assets of the company for social and environmental benefit, and to share that approach with the world. For us, this involves identifying and using Mastercard’s resources to progress toward these ends, and then ensuring our corporate activities are informed by these crucial issues. It’s the recognition that our business success depends on a healthy planet with an inclusive economy, and that we do well by doing good.

Secondly, as a company with extensive data assets, we recognize that data science can be harnessed for better decision-making—but unfortunately, social sector organizations are not building data capacity at a rate that will allow them to capitalize on a new data economy. 

In 2019, we established a program dedicated to building the field of data science for social impact. This initiative aims to enhance the social sector’s capacity to harness the power of their data. In partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation, we created data.org—an organization dedicated to building data science capacity around the world. Our aim is to close the information inequality gap, the growing divide between those who have data and those who don’t.

The third highlight is our focus on small businesses through a global initiative called Strive. We know that small businesses are the engines of the economy, and we are putting our assets to work to support their success. Strive supports businesses with a propensity for growth, and we focus our support in three areas: capital, digital transition, and market access. 

Behrman, NationSwell: Tell us about the Center for Inclusive Growth. How has it evolved?

Singh, Mastercard:  In modern corporate America, social impact isn’t always treated as a central business strategy. The Center for Inclusive Growth seeks to change that narrative by harnessing our company’s resources to generate meaningful change, primarily through a focus on financial inclusion. 

We founded the Center with clear principles for our work, all of which is rooted in evidence-based methods for applying the insights, impact, influence, and investments we have at our disposal.

Thinking about ESG, the Center’s role grows more critical. Many companies have a c3 foundation or an impact fund along with their primary business. The Center brings together these elements and helps determine the most effective application for philanthropic capital and business assets. 

Behrman, NationSwell: What leadership practices have helped you operate effectively?

Singh, Mastercard: I act upon the deep sense of urgency that I feel. It’s simply not acceptable to me that people are suffering, particularly in a world that’s rich with technology, medical advancements, and information. Yet, these resources aren’t being shared widely enough.

You see this sense of urgency reflected in the Center’s philosophy of creating networks. The premise is simple: One’s place of birth shouldn’t dictate their life’s trajectory. This concept of mobility resonates deeply with me. I believe everyone should have the opportunity to fulfill their potential.

Behrman, NationSwell: Is there anything you’ve read, watched, or listened to that has inspired your leadership?

Singh, Mastercard: There’s a book by Sendhil Mullainathan called Scarcity that has profoundly influenced my thinking. The book offers a nuanced and illuminating view on poverty, showing that people with limited resources are often excellent decision-makers because, from necessity, they’ve learned to operate in an environment of scarcity, not abundance. The goal then should not be to instruct them on what they should do, but to help them expand their bandwidth and time.

To learn more about how our ESG Next honorees are shaping business as a force for social and environmental good, visit the series hub. Mastercard is a NationSwell Institutional Member. To learn more about membership in NationSwell’s community of leading social impact and sustainability practitioners, visit our site.

Seven critical design choices for corporate impact investors

Seven critical design choices for corporate impact investors

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As the global impact investing market surpasses $1 trillion USD, a small yet growing number of companies are adopting the strategy.

Corporate impact investors are motivated by the limitations of traditional philanthropy to fundamentally alter the structural disadvantages of capital markets, the desire to diversify their social impact strategies, the proven possibility of competitive financial returns, and intensifying pressure on the private sector to help finance the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Regardless of their motivation, what these enterprising companies are discovering is a world of opportunity and constraint, one that requires intentionality and conviction when designing an impact investing approach that best serves the organization and its goals.

To support the aspirations of would-be and nascent corporate impact investors, NationSwell went behind the curtain with four successful and well-established leaders in the space. We dug deep into their investment philosophies, models, and mechanics with the intent to pinpoint the most fundamental design choices that determine a program’s shape and direction.

This report summarizes our learnings from these four investors, organized around a short but load-bearing list of questions that any new corporate impact investor will need to resolve with clarity. Each question is followed by further explanation of its significance, illustrations of how the four model organizations answered it for their own purposes, and additional guidance from NationSwell on how to approach the choices at hand.

The seven fundamental design choices:

  • What is your impact investment thesis and how does it align with company priorities?
  • Where do your investments originate within the enterprise?
  • Are you investing directly in companies or indirectly through funds and intermediaries?
  • How are you reaching beyond traditional networks to source investment leads?
  • Who should be at the table when making investment decisions in order to optimize for efficacy and efficiency?
  • What will be your level of involvement with investments after cutting a check?
  • How will you measure and report the impact made through your investments?
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Key learnings on the theme of economic mobility

Key learnings on the theme of economic mobility

NationSwell’s 2023 Summit brought together the most cutting-edge and committed leaders in ESG, social impact, philanthropy, and other select fields. Across a full day of programming, participants elevated exciting and promising ideas and initiatives, reflected and revitalized, and gleaned actionable insights, practices, and collaboration opportunities to propel their leadership forward.

One of the main themes of the day was economic mobility, through which presenters and guests explored how to better center their values, prioritize human connection, and bring forward a “Better + Bolder” version of themselves.

Below are key learnings from the NationSwell Summit on the theme of economic mobility.

Note: Key learnings are also available on the Summit themes of purpose-driven leadership and business for good. A panel discussion on the fourth theme of sustainability was off the record.

Key Learnings

We have a collective responsibility to overcome the fallacy that decision-making, rather than circumstance, is responsible for an individual’s poor financial health.

Professor Darrick Hamilton (Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy and founding director of the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy, The New School), in his opening remarks at the NationSwell Summit, reminded us that the tendency to blame poor decision-making over environmental factors like weak systems and structures is a common cognitive bias called fundamental attribution error. To move past this error, Professor Hamilton urged us to dismantle the policies that deny people opportunities to make the right choices and redirect resources to communities in order to provide the enabling conditions for marginalized groups to become self-determining and overcome poverty. Professor Hamilton spoke of baby bonds as one particularly bold and promising solution, describing the appreciating asset as “economic birthright to capital” available to all regardless of circumstances at birth.

Through strategies like employee ownership, business has the capacity to de-stratify our society where other institutions have failed.

On a Practitioners’ Panel on Economic Mobility, Pete Stavros (Head of Global Private Equity, KKR) offered that solutions like employee ownership models are effective at improving financial outcomes for workers. Stavros emphasized that the average American does not have enough assets to invest, in turn limiting their opportunity to develop financial management skills. Through KKR and his nonprofit Ownership Works, Stavros advocates for and has implemented a model in which businesses issue stock as a free benefit to employees, pairing ownership with financial literacy programs, as a mechanism to create a true win-win for the company, its investors, and its workers. Results to date have shown that employee ownership can lead to better employee retention, increased productivity, a higher ROI for the business, and significant wealth creation for workers. But, Stavros emphasized, the work of employee ownership programs is not as elegant and simple as it may first appear, requiring significant commitment and hands-on involvement from company leadership.

Employers are determinative of economic mobility for their workers; it’s time for businesses to better understand their impact and to take charge of that responsibility.

In presenting the American Opportunity Index Corporate Scorecard, Rajiv Chandrasekaran (Head of Policy + Strategy, The Emes Project) presented evidence that a company’s practices are determinative in lower-income workers’ ability to escape poverty. Chandrasekaran highlighted three dimensions of a company’s opportunity to impact workers’ economic mobility, particularly for those without college degrees: (1) the access they offer to employment opportunity, (2) the pay they offer in low- and middle-skill roles, and (3) the level of mobility experienced by employees both within and beyond the firm. The American Opportunity Index Corporate Scorecard offers a first-of-its-kind look into the actual performance of the United States’ largest 250 companies on worker economic mobility and provides an evidentiary basis for employers to look inward at the practices and behaviors that do or do not facilitate that mobility.

  1. Good data is essential for improving economic mobility, but its efficacy is significantly constrained without the right narrative and storytelling.

  2. In a Practitioners’ Panel on Economic Mobility, Michael Tubbs (Special Adviser for Economic Mobility and Opportunity, Gov. Gavin Newsom) asserted that “data is interesting and important, but if data actually drove decision-making, our work would be the opposite of what it is today.” Tubbs’ point is that we already have compelling data to support work on climate action, economic mobility, and more, but the decisions of policy-makers and others in power often defy the conclusions of that data. Tubbs called upon leaders to focus on shifting the narrative and storytelling around how the economy works in order to provide cultural and social momentum behind solutions like baby bonds and universal basic income.
  1. Funders can advance racial equity by making large, unrestricted, multi-year grants to BIPOC-led organizations.

  2. Given that historical and intergenerational effects of systemic inequity are central to the complexities of solving for economic mobility, Terri Ludwig (President, Ballmer Group) highlighted the need for the trust-based philanthropy principles of long-term solutions, multi-year unrestricted funding, and shifting decision-making power to BIPOC leaders proximate to the problem. For its part, Ballmer Group makes 10 year investments in its grantees, and also funds organizations like New Profit and Echoing Green to ensure that capital makes it into the hands of leaders who have traditionally been starved of that access.
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