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How and why PNC partners with early childhood
Published 8:44pm Tuesday, June 28, 2011A 35-year banker who spends her Wednesday mornings reading to children while still getting paid comes to Kathy Jones’ mind with her comment, “This is the best place ever to work.”
- Kathy Jones
Jones, PNC Wealth Management vice president of banking services, is a former Michigan social worker.
“Being an old social worker for 11 years and then working for a for-profit company in financial services, everybody goes, ‘Who does that?’ It’s been a great marriage,” Jones said, “a way to be able to combine the non-profit and for-profit worlds and figure out a way that underserved families and children can receive services in a way that is based on economic development instead of as a social service.
“More times than not, families back away from social services because there’s a stigma implied with that, but when they are presented opportunities that are empowering to their families in a way that they can help their child have that life they couldn’t give them or that they didn’t have themselves as children, they jump all over that.
“Branch County’s Parents as Teachers has a wonderful statistic. For every family that it has been involved in the last 10 years, they have a 100-percent success rate of no substantiated CPS (Child Protective Services) cases. That’s powerful.”
PNC Financial Services Group acquired National City in 2008 to form the fifth-largest U.S. bank, with 31 markets in 19 states.
Getting involved in early childhood initiatives is good business.
PNC’s Grow Up Great, is a 10-year, $100 million early childhood education initiative now in its seventh year of preparing children from birth to age 5 for success in school and life.
Through Grow Up Great, PNC provides leadership, advocacy, funding, resources and volunteers to help parents, caregivers and communities in their efforts to increase the potential for young children to succeed.
PNC wanted to wrap a significant amount of money around something in which employees could be invested as well.
“Hands down” that was early childhood, Jones told about 30 people at the Cass County Great Start Business Summit hosted by the Great Start Collaborative of Cass County and Midwest Energy Cooperative Tuesday morning at Southwestern Michigan College Mathews Conference Center.
“It made a statement to the business community across the United States,” Jones said.
“Not only is it the right thing to do, but from an economic development standpoint, we still have a responsibility to our shareholders. (Research) tells us that if you wrap resources around a child at the earliest age, in the preschool period, you’re likely going to have a child who becomes an adult who needs banking products and services. Not just PNP, but other for-profit companies are seeing the reward of that as well. State Farm is one of them. Eaton Corp. UPS. Through various channels, they’re wrapping resources whether it’s internships for children, mentoring. There are a variety of ways that businesses can contribute to the success of a developing child who graduates from high school and goes on to college.”
Jones said, “We’re advocates for early childhood because we believe in the value of that so much. And we create awareness, gathering our other for-profit partners in a community in a collaborative effort to make sure all children are served. Not only did we have our Grow Up Great initiative, but we have something for employees called Grants for Great Hours. Employees can work 40 hours a year, during work time, and PNC will pay them for being gone volunteering their time in something related to early childhood for underserved kids. At the end of that 40-hour commitment, PNC pays the entity that they volunteered at $1,000 in the employee’s name.
“Just to do the math on that for a second, our Kalamazoo market is nine counties, of which Cass County is part. We have 1,800, almost 2,000 employees and a 50-percent participation rate, that’s a significant amount of money going back into the local economy. As a consequence — which we weren’t counting on — PNC has become a very desired place to work. When twentysomethings and early thirtysomethings are picking a place to work, they’re looking for social responsibility and corporate responsibility. It’s allowed us to attract and retain the best candidates to our workforce. We might not be paying the highest wage, but they come to us not only because of our early childhood economic development initiative, but because PNC has the most certified green buildings of any other corporation — not just financial services. They want to work for a company that offers these opportunities.”
In the last seven years, approximately 20,000 PNC employees have volunteered, logging some 176,000 volunteer hours at early childhood education centers. In addition, employees donated more than 260,000 items for use in classrooms or for the personal well-being of preschool children.
PNC Chairman and CEO James E. Rohr serves as honorary chair of the Pennsylvania Early Learning Investment Commission. Comprised of business leaders from across that state, the commission seeks support for public investment in early learning.
PNC also partners with Sesame Street, the non-profit educational organization behind the children’s television program, and the Fred Rogers Co., producer of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” and creator of a wide range of multi-media materials dedicated to young children, their families and those who support them.
The Sesame Workshop was a corporate honoree along with First Lady Laura Bush in 2007.
