ON NATIONAL CORPORATE PHLANTHROPY DAY
On February 25, 2008, in celebration of National Corporate Philanthropy Day, the State Farm® Youth Advisory Board announced recipients of their second annual Youth Advisory Board grants. Nearly $5 million will be provided to grant recipients with individual grants ranging from $25,000 to $100,000.
Selected through a competitive process, each of State Farm's 13 zones is represented by a youth board member and an associate board member. Associate board members serve a two-year term, assuming full board status at the successful completion of their first year. Each board and associate board member will receive a scholarship for each year of service to the board. Board members selected four issue areas to address through a competitive request-for-proposal (RFP) process. The issues selected were disaster preparedness, teen driver safety, financial education, and access to higher education/closing the achievement gap. With only four face-to-face meetings, the board works virtually on a secured Web site researching the issues, creating the RFPs, and developing communication templates.
The board received more than 325 applications for consideration. Successful applicants demonstrate that the organization has strong youth leadership and engagement, provides a service-learning platform to address the root cause of an issue, and has the ability to make systemic improvements. Once the grants have been awarded, the board is responsible for oversight of the grant recipients and for measuring the progress and success of the grants.
In 2007, the Youth Advisory Board chose to fund projects such as: the development and implementation of a community disaster preparedness program; the implementation of workshops for youth that targeted credit, debt, and consequences of financial decisions; teens carrying the message of the importance of driver safety to their peers; and several addressed high school drop-out rates.
More information regarding State Farm's Youth Advisory Board is available at http://www.sfyab.com.
State Farm associates learned more about the company's philanthropic efforts throughout the week using an online communication tool. In addition to learning about the Youth Advisory Board announcements, employees and agents were encouraged to take advantage of the Good Neighbor Grant Program in which the State Farm Companies Foundation awards a $500 grant on behalf of each eligible State Farm employee, agent, or retiree who volunteers a minimum of 40 hours a year to an eligible nonprofit organization.
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