Q&A: Wendy Wilder and Suzanne Scatliffe, Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation

What is the foundation’s connection to insurance?

Wendy Wilder: The Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation was established 25 years ago by senior industry professionals who felt that the industry could do more to give back to local communities and has since grown from one division in California to four in the US, and launched a UK division in 2015. It’s a foundation that is governed and funded by the industry.

IICF is unique in that it’s a non-profit that represents an entire industry and it creates a unique opportunity for insurers, brokers, agencies and service providers to all come together to amplify their community impact to engage employees and to help address issues such as social mobility together.

Our mission is to help vulnerable and disadvantaged people by bringing the entire industry together in grants, volunteering and leadership.

What are your targets for 2021?

Wilder: We have a couple of primary focus areas. One is that through our fundraising campaign we’ve identified digital exclusion and digital poverty as a key issue for the charities in the communities that we support. We are launching a second fundraising campaign focusing on revitalising communities and including that issue to help make sure that students can continue their education and people of all ages can access vital services and charity programmes.

Suzanne Scatliffe: [Digital inclusion] has always been a challenge for the socioeconomically disadvantaged areas of our local communities but now even more so – we’re in the world of virtualisation so having access to hardware, but also knowing how to use the software is even more critical. Unfortunately as the [Covid-19] pandemic continues, if we’re really going to make our communities better equipped to manage their needs, digital inclusion is absolutely critical to make that happen.

What challenges has Covid brought for the foundation?

Scatliffe: While we’ve had to adapt, we have maybe been already more able to adapt than perhaps other charity organisations have. Their key source of revenue, their ability to fundraise has been severely challenged. Typically the services the charity sector provides are in a face-to-face format. These had to be [made virtual], reduced or maybe even postponed. All of that has impacted organisational resources. The needs are greater for the charity sector but the ability to serve those needs is less than it was pre-pandemic.

Wilder: We very quickly set up a campaign to raise funds for our existing charity partners and through that campaign we successfully raised over £100,000. In a time where charities were struggling to meet demand to adapt, we were able to quickly respond with grants to our eight charity partners to allow them to meet the increasing demand.

How do you choose which charities or causes to help?

Wilder: One of our principles is that the board members nominate the charities that we support. Both our executive board members of trustees as well as our associate board of young professionals nominate charities each year. We have a grants committee that reviews those nominations and then we go through a robust application process.

Scatliffe: It enables all of our member companies to be very engaged in terms of the types of charities we’re supporting and its coupled with due diligence that’s done by our grants committee. The member companies have the assurance that the money that’s being donated to IICF is going to charities that have the governance practices, strong reputation and have the ability to deliver effective services.

To what extent is involvement in charity important for insurers’ reputations?

Scatliffe: It’s important for us to recognise that corporate social responsibility efforts should always be purpose-driven rather than PR-led. For Axa XL CSR is a fundamental part of our company culture. We also have a long history supporting IICF in the US and continued this commitment when the UK [division] was established. The opportunity to come together as an industry to support critical needs in our communities is a powerful one and there’s obviously much more we can achieve collectively. Particularly this year, those needs are even greater, we really need to combine our own company CSR programmes with additional efforts.

Some might say big corporations only get involved in charity to better their image – how can they get past that and demonstrate they are doing something meaningful?

Wilder: It’s having a purpose beyond that. Our fundraising campaign we ran this year is a really good example of where companies are part of a wider story of helping communities, but they really are having a meaningful impact at the same time, and a donation of £10 to £10,000 collectively can make a much bigger difference. One of our donors awarded a small grant to one of our charities and once he heard first-hand how they are helping students who had high potential but low income go into top universities he could really see those values.

What do you think about insurers’ response to Covid crisis in terms of charitable giving?

Wilder: The insurance industry has contributed $200m (£160m) in the US and an additional $100m internationally. That really shows that the industry has responded strongly and has made a significant contribution to the charities and communities that have been impacted by the crisis.

Scatliffe: The private sector recognises that it has the opportunity to support the charity sector. It’s absolutely instrumental to many brands, be it within our industry or more broadly, to make sure they’re providing a response that is a sincere and authentic and an appropriate to what they’re able to do and to give.

How companies can get involved in supporting the IICF?

Wilder: We invite companies to get involved in a number of different ways. Companies can – in smaller ways – attend, sponsor or speak at our events, which typically include an annual conference and gala dinner. This year, we pivoted to virtual webinars, which have been successful.

Alternatively, companies can volunteer and with our grant recipient charities. We have a signature week of giving each October where employees can volunteer individually with colleagues or with people across different companies, which is really unique and valuable.