Northwestern Mutual Foundation 

Foundation Donates $285,000
To Honor Top Volunteers

Every year, the Northwestern Mutual Foundation holds a competition that is open to more than 11,500 company financial representatives and interns from across America.

The Community Service Award program, in its 17th year, recognizes exemplary volunteer involvement and dedication to charitable organizations and philanthropic projects.

This year, the Foundation is donating $285,000 to 26 nonprofit organizations nationwide, honoring 26 financial representatives.

Named “Most Exceptional Volunteer” is Richard Worrell, CLU, CFP, for his dedication to Easter Seals UCP North Carolina & Virginia, Inc.  The nonprofit is receiving $25,000 from the Foundation in his honor.

In addition to Worrell, the Foundation is recognizing and honoring 25 "Outstanding Volunteers" for their achievements with a grant of $10,000 to each respective organization they represent.

Since the inception of the Community Service Award program, more than $3.5 million has been awarded to nonprofits around the country.

Our Philanthropy at a Glance

Over the years and every day, in service and giving, Northwestern Mutual employees from its field force have sought to make a difference in communities across the country:

• In a decade - The Foundation has contributed $170 million to 1,400 nonprofit organizations serving communities nationwide.
  
  
• In a year - The Northwestern Mutual Foundation provided $15 million in grants in 2010 to nonprofit organizations.
  
  
• By the hour - More than 1,000 employees donate 30,000 hours each year to community volunteer efforts through group activities, mentoring, charity drives, and service on nonprofit boards.
  
  
• Our partners - The Foundation partners with best-in-class nonprofit organizations that share our commitment to securing the future of children and developing our local economy.
  

News from the Foundation

For more in-depth information on our most recent programs, initiatives, and sponsorships, take a look at our press releases below:

	Northwestern Mutual Foundation Donates $285,000 to Honor Its Top Volunteers
	Northwestern Mutual Foundation Sponsors Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Concert
	Northwestern Mutual Foundation Announces Neighborhood and Workforce Development Grants
	Northwestern Mutual Foundation Announces Grants to Help Make Milwaukee a Destination
	Northwestern Mutual Foundation’s Click For Kids Campaign Commits to Donating $200,000 to Nonprofits
	Northwestern Mutual Foundation Donates $100,000 to American Red Cross To Aid Tornado Relief Efforts in the Southeast
	Northwestern Mutual Foundation Donates $125,000 to American Red Cross Following Japan Earthquake and Tsunami
	Northwestern Mutual Foundation Announces 29 Grants to Boost Literacy and Access to Higher Education in Wisconsin
	Northwestern Mutual Foundation Donates $50,000 to Easter Seals New Hampshire to Honor Top Volunteers
	Northwestern Mutual Foundation Announces Grants to Promote Healthy Habits
	Northwestern Mutual Joins Pakistan Relief Effort with $100,000 American Red Cross Donation
	Northwestern Mutual Kicks Off “Leaving a Legacy” Volunteer Initiative
	Northwestern Mutual Foundation Names Community Impact Award Winners
	Boys & Girls Club of Greater Milwaukee Announces Northwestern Mutual Foundation Youth of the Year Award Winner
	Northwestern Mutual Foundation Supports Haiti Earthquake Relief Efforts with $100,000 American Red Cross Donation

Securing Future Generations

Imagine each child – every child -- having a foundation for life, enabling him or her to reach their fullest potential: The academic achiever; the voracious reader; the young teenager able to make informed financial decisions; the child raised on a healthy diet, living an active lifestyle; the intellectually curious third grader inspired to explore and create wondrous new worlds.

When it comes to the future, Northwestern Mutual is committed to helping children develop life skills to prepare them to achieve their full potential and create their own legacies.

Along with our nonprofit partners, we’re building that foundation for America’s next generation by identifying and supporting programs that:

• Motivate and inspire kids to read, create and explore.
• Insure that kids are well enough to learn and grow.

We collaborate with best-in-class nonprofit organizations across the country that share our commitment to securing future generations.

Academic Achievement Through Literacy

Every child should be given the opportunity to learn how to read. Unfortunately, one of the greatest challenges in American education is illiteracy.  With our partners, we seek to play a leadership role in confronting this challenge. Through funding of programs like City Year, at-risk students are provided academic support and enrichment opportunities with a goal of raising literacy scores and reducing absenteeism.

• Did you know? Access to books is essential in promoting literacy among children. In middle-income neighborhoods, the ratio of books per child is 13 to 1 while in low-income neighborhoods, the ratio is one age-appropriate book for every 300 children. (Source: Handbook of Early Literacy Research)

Wellness Through Healthy Habits

The sooner our children can learn healthy eating habits and the importance of active lifestyles the better. Through our funding of organizations like Action for Healthy Kids, we’re helping to reduce and prevent childhood obesity and undernourishment.

• Did you know? Healthy kids stand a greater chance of becoming healthy adults. Government statistics show that 32% of children are obese or overweight. In addition to physical challenges, the most immediate consequence of being overweight is social discrimination and low self-esteem. Obese children rated their quality of life with scores as low as those of young cancer patients on chemotherapy. (Source: NYU Child Study Center)

Inspiration Through Arts Education

While youth is but a moment, it is where a child’s potential is forever unlocked. We’re proud to partner with organizations offering innovative arts programs that inspire children in ways that reach far beyond any studio, stage or dance floor. One partner, First Stage Children’s Theater, creates unique theatre experiences for kids of all ages through productions, academy training and educational programs.

• Did you know? Students who participate extensively in arts programs record higher average scores on standardized tests than those with little to no participation in arts learning. (Source: Americans for the Arts)

Opportunities for Special Needs

Because every child deserves the chance to embrace their full potential, regardless of circumstances, we collaborate with organizations that serve children with special needs. Our association with Penfield Children’s Center is focused on the center's special care nursery, which provides rehabilitation and day services for medically fragile children.

• Did you know? Disabled children need to be involved in physical and musical activities just like their able-bodied peers. Recreation plays an important role in development, fitness and health. As an art and a science, music therapy stimulates both the right and left brain. It is therapies like these that help children with special needs maximize their potential.

 Learn more about our Securing Future Generations pillar of giving.

Developing Our Local Economy

America’s greatest cities are those that are able to flourish for generations. This is of special significance to Northwestern Mutual and its longstanding commitment to the greater Milwaukee area. After all, this is our hometown – it’s where the company’s headquarters has resided for more than 150 years.

On almost any day, Northwestern Mutual employees are engaged in serving our community as volunteers and ambassadors. It is in great part because of our employees that Northwestern Mutual has consistently been a proud partner and a top supporter of United Way of Greater Milwaukee since the nonprofit’s inception in 1909. In the past ten years alone, the company and its employees and retirees have contributed almost $30 million in support of our hometown United Way. For the past five years, Northwestern Mutual and its employees have teamed as the sole corporation to provide more than $1 million in annual support of the United Performing Arts Fund (UPAF), the largest organization of its type in the country.

Each year, Northwestern Mutual employees donate over 23,000 hours to company-sponsored volunteer efforts that include: group activities, mentoring, charity walks and collections, and service on nonprofit boards.

Self-Sufficiency = Economic Vitality

As a Foundation, the focus of our local efforts is to strengthen the economic landscape by increasing the self-sufficiency of those in need today in order to help the generations of tomorrow.

With this outcome in mind, we partner with best-in-class nonprofits that:

• Provide the basic needs of food, shelter and dental and medical care.
• Drive self-sufficiency through entry-level job training and higher education (for minority students).
• Enhance quality of life through neighborhood revitalization and through support of cultural activities that make Milwaukee a destination city.

The Basic Needs

Focusing on the emergency needs of families and individuals in Milwaukee addresses the first building block for strengthening the economic landscape. Ultimately, individuals and families that are secure with their basic needs can direct their energies to actions that lead to independence, which, in turn and with time, will help to enhance the economic vitality of our community. It’s for this reason, we partner with nonprofits that provide food, shelter and dental and medical care. Two among the many examples of these partnerships include:

• Sojourner Family Peace Center
  The center’s mission is to create peaceful communities where domestic respect and life free from violence are the universal right of every woman, man and child. The center operates a 42-bed shelter that provides safety and support services to thousands of Milwaukee women and children.
  
  
• Sixteenth Street Community Health Center
  The center’s mission is to improve the health and well-being of Milwaukee’s surrounding communities by providing quality, patient-centered, family-based healthcare, health education and social services free from language, cultural and economic barriers.

Self-Sufficiency

Increasing the self-sufficiency of those in need helps to further strengthen Milwaukee’s economic landscape. To drive self-sufficiency, we partner with nonprofits that promote job training and higher education. Two examples of these partnerships include:

• Goodwill Industries of Southeastern Wisconsin
  Goodwill provides training, employment and supportive services for people in need who are seeking greater independence. The Foundation is one of the largest private supporters of this program and has enabled Goodwill to increase dramatically the number of people served.
  
  
• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
  Serving Wisconsin’s largest metropolitan area, UWM seeks to further academic and professional opportunities befitting a major urban university. The Foundation provides full-tuition awards to students in need beginning in their junior year. We also match each recipient with a mentor who is an employee, and that relationship usually lasts through graduation. Representing a perfect circle of success, several current employees were scholarship recipients, had mentors and now mentor current students.

Quality of Life

Great cities provide safe, decent, affordable neighborhoods, which enhance the quality of life for their residents. Likewise, there’s a certain quality of life that truly certifies a city as a great destination – a desirable place where people want to visit; where businesses want to locate; and where families want to live, work and play. Working to create a more vibrant community, our partnerships include:

• Milwaukee Habitat for Humanity
  Since 1989, the Foundation has supported Habitat for Humanity’s efforts to revitalize Milwaukee’s neighborhoods by building and renovating decent, affordable housing. Through the Foundation’s funding and the volunteer efforts of Northwestern Mutual employees, the company has directly sponsored the construction of 18 new houses. Recent grant dollars are contributing to the construction of 100 new homes for families in need.
  
  
• MAM After Dark
  This program is a monthly social art happening held on Friday nights at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Each MAM After Dark event attracts a broad audience of more than 1,000 attendees and exposes new groups to art, including the museum’s galleries, special exhibitions and local art by professional, emerging and amateur artists. Partnerships with local universities, artists, performance groups and cultural groups contribute to the dynamic, ever-changing programs that include live music, cultural dance showcases, and hands-on art projects.
  
  
• Northwestern Mutual Family Farm
  This fun program is a partnership with the Milwaukee County Zoo by way of the Zoological Society of Milwaukee. Here, kids and families are invited to learn more about what life is like on an actual farm. Educational programs are offered daily, and parents are provided numerous opportunities to interact with their kids, including the newly renovated Munchkin Dairy Farm, which is also sponsored by the Northwestern Mutual Foundation.

 Learn more about our Developing Our Local Economy pillar of giving.

Volunteers for Home Town America

Annually more than 1,000 Northwestern Mutual employees donate more than 29,000 hours to community volunteer efforts through group activities, mentoring, charity drives, and service on nonprofit boards.

In addition, our financial representatives and staff volunteer thousands of hours in their local communities across our country.

Together, we’re committed to building better foundations for the lives of children in need and better communities in which they live and grow. Here are some of our employees and financial representatives’ stories of service:

• At a family picnic in Albuquerque, NM, children with diabetes are comforted in learning they aren’t alone in facing their challenges.
• Each year in Charlotte, NC, one of the most successful Easter Seal walks in the country is held.
• In Westport, CT, a group joins together to take the “Penguin Plunge” into the cold March waters of Long Island Sound to support Special Olympics.
• In Milwaukee, WI, a “Million Minutes” of service are donated to nonprofits throughout the city, including the time to build an entire playground at a Boys and Girls Club Camp – in just one day.

Annually, the Northwestern Mutual Foundation recognizes and supports volunteers for their exemplary community service.

Our Community Impact Award recognizes volunteers from our field offices who collectively join forces to make a difference. The Foundation awards a total of $200,000 donated each year to nonprofits on behalf of the winners.

The Community Service Award recognizes 26 individuals from our field for their volunteer commitment. More than $3.5 million has been donated to nonprofits around the country since the award's inception in 1995.

Our Volunteer Support Program recognizes employees who volunteer 40+ hours a year through a $500 donation to a local nonprofit.

Mutual Friends brings together employees, retirees, family members and friends to lend a helping hand to community projects.

During Days of Sharing, the Foundation commits $100,000 to 25 nonprofit organizations nominated by employees. Grants are given annually in the name of the employee winners.

Matching Gifts supports quality educational institutions by matching dollar-for-dollar contributions made by our field force and employees. Since 1995, the foundation has matched $40 million in support of well over 30,000 accredited schools across the country.

Our Disaster Relief Program supports rescue, recovery and rebuilding efforts following a natural disaster through a $500,000 grant to the American Red Cross.

Application Process

We require all applications to be submitted online. The application process includes an eligibility questionnaire to help determine if an organization fits our current areas of giving. Your organization needs to meet the criteria to be eligible for any funding. Prior to beginning the application process, we suggest you:

• Review Secure Our Future and Our Local Economy tabs to learn more about our focus areas.
• Review the deadline schedule listed below.

Submit a new application for charitable contribution or grant.
Submit a new application for table or event sponsorship.

Access your account to do any of the following:

• Return to an application you have saved but not submitted.
• Access record of your previous submissions.
• Access requirement forms.

To learn more about Northwestern Mutual Foundation's online application process, including how to create an account, download FAQs.

What We Fund

To be eligible for funding, an organization is required:

• To be a qualified 501c(3) organization with a valid IRS Tax ID.
• To be a U.S.-based organization.
• To include the following attachments:
  • List of officers and directors
  • Audited financial statements
  • Program/project budget
  • List of funding sources
  • IRS 501c(3) letter of determination
  • Financial template providing snapshot of viability, stability
  • Current annual report (or link).

What We Don’t Fund

Generally speaking, we do not fund:

• Organizations that are not tax-exempt under paragraph 501c(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code.
• Individuals for any purpose.
• Nonprofit organizations located outside the U.S. or that primarily serve clients located outside of the U.S.
• Organizations seeking funding prior to our 90-day review process.
• Nonprofit organizations with an operating budget under $300,000.
• Grants that would represent more than 5 percent of a nonprofit’s annual operating budget.
• Debt-reduction or retirement campaigns.
• Capital or endowment campaigns unless approved by the Foundation in advance of application submission.
• Groups or organizations that will re-grant the foundation’s gifts to other organizations or individuals (except the United Way of Greater Milwaukee and the United Performing Arts Fund).
• School or community athletic events or teams, bands and choirs (including equipment, uniforms, travel and any requests for in-kind donations to support special events).
• Labor, religious or fraternal groups that do not provide needed services to the community at-large.
• Lobbying activities.

Deadlines

The Foundation’s grant application deadlines align with our focus areas of giving. If a deadline is missed, you'll have to wait until the next opportunity to submit an application for that focus area. Applications may be submitted up to 60 days before the focus area deadline, and grants are typically announced three to four months after the deadline closes.

*Note: To qualify as an official Milwaukee area destination, a nonprofit group must receive 100,000 visitors in an average year (one-time events do not qualify).  Performing arts groups that receive UPAF grants are not eligible for Destination funding.