Maximizing Community Commitment: Prudential Employees Use Their Skills for Good to Benefit Newark Nonprofits
Prudential employees unleashed their professional expertise to diagnose the critical challenges facing nonprofits at a Taproot Foundation Pro Bono Week ScopeAthon.
Headquartered in Newark, NJ for more than 100 years, Prudential is a recognized leader for its commitment to the local community. No stranger to employee volunteerism, Prudential demonstrated its investment in helping the community thrive by partnering with Taproot Foundation to host a ScopeAthon to benefit Newark, NJ nonprofits.
The Pro Bono Week ScopeAthon was a half-day pro bono volunteering event in which Prudential employees unleashed their professional expertise to diagnose the critical challenges facing nonprofits and then map out the projects necessary to address them. On October 30, 2015, 26 Prudential employees worked directly with eight nonprofit organizations local to the headquarter city. In just four hours, Prudential employees used their professional skills to address infrastructure challenges across a range of functional issues including social media and marketing strategies, business planning, and financial modeling tools. Kicking off the event, Jamie Kalamarides, Head of Institutional Investment Solutions at the company shared, “There are three goals for today. The first is to help these organizations define and achieve a very specific goal. The second is for Prudential leaders to develop skills and talents and to exercise those in new and creative ways. And the third is how to put both of them together so that we can improve our communities in Newark and the surrounding areas.”
The employees of Prudential brought the right skills to the table, and the short 4-hour time frame required teams to focus specifically on the challenge at hand to ensure the outcome included actionable next steps for the nonprofits. All of the nonprofits in the room are long-term partners of Prudential, with many organizations thriving as a direct result of Prudential’s deep investment.
The key to the event’s success was Prudential’s talent. Despite their busy schedules, the senior level employees from Prudential proved to be well-qualified thought partners for each organization. One nonprofit participant stated, “I was so impressed with our team and how much they are invested in [our] organization. We can tell they spent so much time to learn who we are and that means so much to us and that was the best thing.”
And it was not just the nonprofit participants giving thanks – employees found the experience meaningful for themselves and the nonprofits, with one employee sharing, “It was great to be able to meet and work with the nonprofits and a talented group of my colleagues during a new event. Having Prudential show its continued commitment to the community makes me proud.”
Prudential’s commitment to Newark, NJ doesn’t stop at just investing money. The Pro Bono Week ScopeAthon is an example of the Prudential’s long-term commitment to ensuring its partner nonprofits continue to grow and succeed. Mr. Kalamarides shared, “This is really consistent with our purpose-driven brand. We do this as an organization, we’ve done this for 140 years, and we’re going to keep on doing it.” This is good news for employees, nonprofits, and the broader local community. Thank you, Prudential, for finding new ways to maximize your commitment to responsible citizenship in Newark, NJ.
