Fidelity Continues to Deepen their Commitment in the Communities they Serve

Last year has been unlike any year in recent times. As we tackled a global pandemic, we also were confronting issues of social justice and racial equity. As employers operating in this “new normal,” we should all be asking ourselves, “What does corporate volunteerism look like in 2021? How do you continue to create authentic community engagement?”

The importance of corporate social responsibility has grown over the last several years. Consumers increasingly value companies not just by what they produce, but how responsibly they operate as a business.

At Fidelity Investments, we paused to take a deeper look at our community relations efforts and listen to our nonprofit partners. Our goal was to focus on better aligning our community relations efforts with our expanding focus on diversity and inclusion.

“We are deepening our commitment to supporting racial equity across all of our programming and partnerships, and finding new ways to understand and support the underlying issues that underrepresented and underserved communities are facing”, said Teresa Pelletier, Vice President of Community Relations.

For a decade, Fidelity volunteers have helped beautify school campuses in regions where Fidelity has a large employee presence by painting classrooms and building outdoor seating. While the work we’ve done at schools has been a tremendous help to our partners over the years, we will begin to look even deeper into the issues that the students in our communities’ face. In partnership with Points of Light, we have evolved our School Transformation Day programming to a Season of Transformation for 2021.

The Season of Transformation will focus on “listening, responding and reflecting.” Our Points of Light Global Network affiliates will convene nonprofits in the communities and Fidelity associates for Listen and Learn sessions. The goal is to help Fidelity associates better understand the systemic issues affecting students and local communities and the challenges within the education sector and get connected with the ecosystem of community partners supporting students and their families.

Fidelity volunteers, working with Points of Light, will respond by designing meaningful and impactful virtual or at-home projects and programming to supply local schools with much needed resources.

Lastly, once the programming has been completed, Points of Light Global Network affiliates will help our volunteers reflect on the impact of their collective efforts and understand how they can act in their communities to support sustainable change.

By focusing and better understanding the needs of underserved communities, while adapting to a virtual environment, we are continuing our focus of supporting the communities where we live, work, learn and serve.