This is the time of the year when companies take stock of how they did in the year just over, totaling up sales and revenues and profits.
We’re doing that, of course, as any good business does. But we’re also very intent on judging how much good we did in 2015, whether we’re truly living up to our values.
We believe that if you’re driven by your mission, driven by your cause, you automatically boost your bottom line. In our case, we must judge whether we kept up with our vision – to bring peace of mind to everyone we touch; our mission of keeping our promises; and our values – Do good. Be good. Make good.
So here are some of our key measurements:
- The National Life Group Foundation, with an increased budget to $750,000, was able to Do good in ways large and small, approving 114 grants in 2015. We supported Foodbanks in Vermont and Texas, and both grants helped to pay for backpacks filled with food that schoolchildren from low-income families take home on the weekends. We helped keep a local police department’s canine patrol alive. We donated to a program that works to prevent homelessness among veterans. There were so many good causes. More than 100 others.
- Our employees turned out in force to support our community, dedicating 4,050.65 hours of volunteer time – time that was paid by the company as if the employees were at work – at nonprofits in the communities we call home. That’s an increase of 725 hours from the year before.
- Employees also opened their wallets to donate to nonprofits through our annual Community Giving Campaign. Combined with a match through our charitable foundation, we raised $171,000 for charities all around the country, a 75 percent increase from the year before.
- The second annual Do Good Fest proved that we can have lots of fun while doing plenty of good. More than 3,000 people turned out on our back lawn for a July afternoon and evening of music, food, children’s events and a good time. We raised $15,000 for Branches of Hope, the cancer patient fund at Central Vermont Medical Center, bringing to $26,000 the total raised so far.
- And by any measure, the products we sold and the promises we kept when a claim was paid continued our 167-year tradition of making America a better place by offering a little more financial peace of mind to all kinds of different families.
We hope you’re able to take some time to sit back and consider what good you accomplished over the past year. For us, it offers an important balance to the bottom line. And it also challenges to ask what more we can and should be doing in 2016.
National Life Insurance Company was founded in 1848. Life Insurance Company of the Southwest was chartered in 1955.
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