The Common, a Nashville-based firm, a part of the American Household Insurance coverage Group, is committing $166,000 in group grants in 2023. This contains multi-year commitments that had been introduced final 12 months, the primary 12 months of The Common Group Grants Program. Persist Nashville, one of many group companions supported with a multi-year dedication, is highlighted in additional element under.
Twenty Nashville-based organizations will obtain grants to advance their work addressing quite a lot of wants in the neighborhood and creating vital societal influence. The Common launched the grant program as an annual group funding initiative, constructing on the corporate’s lengthy‑standing dedication to the communities it serves.
The grants include single-year and three-year commitments. A complete of $166,000 has been dedicated to 2023 single-year grants together with 12 months two of multi-year grants that had been introduced in 2022. In complete, $400,000 in multi-year investments might be awarded by means of 2024 (see full record of recipients under).
Investing in Partnerships
“We’re happy to see the persevering with curiosity within the grants program, and in 2023 we had been excited to get practically thrice the functions we acquired in 12 months one as extra organizations have discovered about this system,” stated Eileen Manners, head of claims for The Common. “We’re honored to assist so many nonprofit organizations proper right here within the Nashville group, doing such constructive and significant work within the place we name residence.”
A key goal of The Common Group Grants Program is just not solely to offer monetary assist, however to foster genuine partnerships with the organizations. “These organizations are group companions, and by listening, studying and dealing collectively, we try to grasp the wants they’re addressing and the efficient methods they’ve discovered to reply to them,” stated Manners.
Final 12 months in the course of the first 12 months of this system, giving priorities had been recognized, designed to assist initiatives that shut fairness gaps and create alternatives – and in the end higher communities – that profit all. These giving priorities embrace:
Educational Achievement and Schooling: Applications and providers that advance academic fairness in studying and tutorial achievement by means of entry to high-quality training.
Wholesome Youth Improvement: Applications and providers that assist the continued wants of younger folks from start by means of 25, together with social-emotional studying and psychological well being.
Financial Alternative: Applications and providers that improve employment entry and alternative, reminiscent of job coaching and workforce readiness.
Group Resiliency: Applications and providers that take away obstacles to brief and/or long-term wants of people and households reminiscent of meals, housing, transportation and daycare wants.
Prioritizing Belief
The Common Group Grants Program will proceed to middle on utilizing trust-based approaches in its philanthropic efforts in Nashville. It is a philosophy that’s shared by American Household Insurance coverage Group in its group funding partnerships by means of the American Household Insurance coverage Goals Basis. This implies funds are supplied by way of unrestricted, normal working assist fairly than having to earmark funds for particular packages. Belief-based philanthropy additionally doesn’t require conventional reporting necessities.
This profitable strategy promotes fairness and strong relationships between the companions, in addition to demonstrating confidence within the organizations’ dedication to their very own goals and priorities.
“Our trust-based practices talk to our companions that we perceive they’re closest to the work and are in the perfect place to most successfully use the funds to attain measurable and impactful outcomes,” stated Manners.
One Grant Recipient’s Story: Persist Nashville
One group supported by The Common’s Group Grants Program for a multi-year dedication is Persist Nashville, a corporation devoted to creating group and doubling the speed of school graduates from Nashville. Persist was based in 2019 in response to the low charge of Nashville highschool college students pursuing post-secondary training. Since 2019, Persist has coached greater than 3,500 college students and so they at present coach college students throughout 109 campuses.
Persist makes use of three major pillars when empowering college students: teaching, group and care. They combine text-based teaching with in-person programming, delivered by coaches who’ve years {of professional} experience of their respective fields. The text-based strategy was designed to offer college students a simple and dependable solution to talk with their coaches utilizing their cell telephones whereas at college. Persist additionally facilitates community-building alternatives for college kids to attach with one another by means of on-campus research teams and occasions. The third pillar, care, is a dedication to the well-being of their college students. That is demonstrated by means of their Persist Fund, an emergency useful resource fund created to assist college students dealing with unexpected monetary burdens associated to their training, providing as much as $200 to offset bills.
“There’s a clear want for these kinds of packages,” stated Persist Chief of Workers Jennifer Hill. “About 27% of Metro Nashville Public Faculty graduates go on to earn a level in six years, however in Davidson County, the place we’re situated, solely about 48% of adults have a university diploma. It’s crucial that we offer these providers to attach college students to their post-secondary aspirations, who might not have folks of their circle who perceive the method.”
About 65% of Persist’s college students are first-generation faculty college students, who might face extra obstacles when pursuing a level. Persist strategically pairs coaches of an analogous background with these college students to assist information them, demystifying the faculty course of and stopping roadblocks from turning into detrimental to their success. Many Persist graduates return to contribute as mentors, offering assist and empowerment.
“We had a scholar who attended Colorado State that returned and have become a board member for us,” stated Director of Communications Melissa Watkins. “We love when college students mentor different college students. They need to assist different college students be ok with their journey and this solely makes our group stronger. We additionally love listening to suggestions from our college students and interns as a result of it helps us serve them extra successfully.”
Persist plans to make use of the grants from The Common to offer extra alternatives for college kids to return collectively and construct group, fostering a stronger sense of camaraderie amongst college students who try for comparable success regardless of their challenges.
“We’re so grateful to The Common for these unrestricted grants that enable us to proceed helping Nashville college students,” stated Hill. “With their assist, we’re creating a greater future for our metropolis. Applications like The Common’s Group Grants Program assist organizations like ours broaden the work we’re doing in our communities, permitting us to succeed in much more folks.”
Extra details about Persist Nashville and their mission will be discovered on their web site, and within the video under.
Investing in Fairness and Optimistic Change
The Common Group Grants program additionally locations an emphasis on organizations that work with communities that determine as Black, Indigenous and Folks of Coloration (BIPOC), these which can be economically deprived, and youth and younger households. It additionally helps funding for organizations/packages offering academic or workforce alternatives for people at present incarcerated, justice-involved or experiencing re-entry into the group.
See the entire record of beforehand introduced multi-year grant commitments in addition to the record of 2023 single-year grants.
About The Common Insurance coverage
The Common Vehicle Insurance coverage Providers, Inc. (The Common®) is a licensed insurance coverage company and a subsidiary of PGC Holdings Corp. (PGC), which is wholly owned by American Household Mutual Insurance coverage Firm. By way of its insurance coverage firm subsidiaries and their predecessors, PGC has been writing car insurance coverage since 1963, serving clients who might discover it troublesome to acquire insurance coverage from different carriers at an inexpensive charge. Go to www.thegeneral.com and observe The Common on Twitter, Instagram and Fb.
