Sometimes when you’re at the beginning of starting something—taking on a new project at work, for example, or building a brand from scratch—it can be hard to see the long-term impact it may have. You have a vision. You make sure to take all the right steps to guide the project to the end goal. And of course, you have to have faith in yourself, the project, and the people you’ve joined with to make it happen.
More than 80 years ago, Newport Beach-based Pacific Life Insurance Co. made its first foray into corporate philanthropy when it put support behind Community Chest, the predecessor organization of today’s United Way.
The goal was to help ameliorate the devastating effects of the Great Depression. Employees collected donations, and Community Chest distributed them to the many charitable organizations it worked with.
At the time, company executives say, giving to the community wasn’t part of a plan for nearly a century of corporate philanthropy but simply an outward example of the values that guided PacLife, then and now. Its history as a leader in philanthropic giving made it the Business’s Journal’s Civic 50 legacy winner this year.
Then and Now
In the eight decades since that first outreach, PacLife’s commitment to the communities that surround it has grown exponentially. In 1984, it endowed what was then known as the Pacific Mutual Foundation with $3 million. At the same time, the company created “the Good Guys,” turning what had been a loose conglomeration of volunteers into a formal organization with support from top management.
The foundation has given more than $102 million to domestic and international philanthropic causes. The Good Guys has donated thousands of hours to the community and nonprofit organizations. The company focuses community investments in the areas of arts and culture, civic, community and economic development, the environment, education, and health and human services.
“One of our company’s core values is community,” says Tennyson Oyler by email. He serves in the dual role of vice president, brand management and public affairs at PacLife and president of the Pacific Life Foundation. “Supporting our community is vital to helping it grow and making it a place where families want to live and work. It is the heart and soul of our company.”
In Orange County alone last year, PacLife invested more than $4 million in monetary and in-kind donations. “By the end of 2018,” Oyler says, “we plan to have donated more than $4 million to Orange County nonprofits.”
The company says the role the Good Guys plays in the community is as important as PacLife’s support.
“From the hard work they put into the Race for the Cure, the many projects they conquer during Week of Service, the dozens of playgrounds they’ve helped build with KaBOOM! and the many, many hours they put in for other good causes, there are multiple opportunities every week for our employees to give back, individually or as teams.”
So far this year, Good Guys has contributed more than 10,000 hours of volunteer service. PacLife says about 60% of employees participate in company-sponsored volunteer events each year.
The insurance giant employs about 2,200 people in Orange County, primarily at its Newport Center headquarters next to Fashion Island and its Aliso Viejo operations center.
It says it embraces the opportunity to support employees’ outreach efforts and invests in the charities and causes they’re most interested in. In addition to making numerous volunteer opportunities and activities available to employees, PacLife has matching gifts programs for contributions to nonprofits, universities and United Way—$680,000 in matching funds last year. This year, as part of its 150th anniversary celebration, it increased grant matches from 100% to 150%.
Special Year
To help celebrate its sesquicentennial, PacLife has mobilized its workforce to participate in a series of on-site and off-site community volunteer events.
It says that this year, more than half of employees volunteered to create 8,000 literacy kits for Read Across America; cleaned up more than 2,000 pounds of trash from local waterfronts; assembled and distributed 4,000 teddy bears to children with a parent in the military through Operation Gratitude; and painted and refreshed local Title 1 schools. Before year-end, Oyler says they also will have created 10,000 Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, or STEM, kits for Child Creativity Lab.
Long-Term Legacy
When PacLife took on the responsibility of helping the community in 1932, leaders couldn’t have known how the move would shape its direction. Today’s top executives, under the helm of Chief Executive James T. Morris, are well aware and pleased by the impact the gestures can have.
Part of PacLife’s long-term goal is to have a solid foundation allowing it to serve the community far into the future. “We believe in innovation and investing in solutions that have positive and meaningful impact both in our local communities and in our workforce,” Oyler writes. “When we think about the next 150 years and the collective impact we can have as a company, we can only achieve this with a combination of thoughtful investments coupled with engaged employees passionate about the products and solutions we offer.”
