As we look back on our first full year of operation, we’re remembering a visit to our office earlier this school year. In attendance were the students in the Leadership Development class we were sponsoring at Madison’s O’Keeffe Middle School along with our partners at the Madison Metropolitan School District, the Urban League of Greater Madison and the United Way.

Many of the students, like 7^th grader Chaniyah Bell, said being called a leader gave her a “feeling that I never had before and… the more I hear that word, the more it makes me go straight.” Her teachers, her family reported better grades, better attendance, better behavior and really interestingly, a better impact on friends and siblings to also “go straight.”

When her class came to visit us, their teacher told us, they called The Institute “the people who care about us.”

Chaniyah’s is one of the stories you’ll see in our 2019 Annual Report that is full of people and companies we care deeply about.

It can be really difficult to see the positives in life right now as we battle a pandemic, but the work of the American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact continues. We’re continuing to make investments. We’re continuing to help support ecosystems. We’re continuing to do whatever we can to align with like-minded people who are working to close equity gaps in America.

We promise we will continue to care about students like Chaniyah in 2020 and beyond.

Thanks for being a part of our journey.