How Liberty Mutual Invests In Its Community
At Lemontree, our corporate partners sustain our work in a number of ways, whether it's through increasing our capacity through volunteer engagements or sponsoring our expansion. Our work would not be possible without this support, but we're especially indebted to the Liberty Mutual Foundation for funding our launch in Boston.
In every conversation we've had with Liberty Mutual, I've been impressed by the deep care and authenticity they bring to the table. It's clear that the Community Investments team, who we've been lucky to work with, takes this work seriously. For this interview, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Kalina Philalom, Program Manager of Community Investments at the Liberty Mutual Foundation. She shares how her team has refocused their social impact priorities to adapt to the community's needs since the pandemic and reminds us of the magic that happens when you truly listen.
As always, if you're interested in learning more about volunteering with Lemontree, you can check out more info here. And, if you have suggestions for future guests, you can email me at Kasumi@lemontreefoods.org
Kasumi: Kalina, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today! I'm really excited to dive into your work at Liberty Mutual. I'd love to start off by hearing more about your role.
Kalina: Hi, Kasumi! My role on the Community Investments team at Liberty, more specifically the Grants team / Liberty Mutual Foundation, is Program Manager. Essentially, I manage our grantmaking initiatives within the cities of Boston and Dallas, alongside another one of my wonderful colleagues. As a whole team, nationally, we steward grant making in Boston, Seattle, and Dallas, but I mainly work on Boston and Dallas. In addition to that, I also oversee our long-term partnership with Charlestown High School, which is an open enrollment school in the Boston Public School System.
Kasumi: Awesome! So tell me more about grantmaking at Liberty. What does that look like?
Kalina: So, grantmaking at Liberty Mutual has evolved over the years. Traditionally, we’ve focused on making education more equitable and accessible within low-income communities, making sure our neighbors have equal access to the basic needs required to live and thrive, for example – healthy food choices, safe housing for people experiencing homelessness, and supportive/transitional programming, and making sure all these things are accessible for people of all abilities. For example, in 2019, we opened an inclusive playground out in Plano, Texas, and we also have one here in Boston, making sure that safe play is accessible to all children who may be hard of hearing or maybe blind or wheelchair bound. And by partnering with organizations, like Lemontree, we’re able to expand healthy food options to our neighbors who may be experiencing food insecurity. Education is the largest part of our portfolio – ranging from after-school to in-school programs, to music education, to financial literacy, anything that has to do with education, and we mainly focus on public school systems and the neighborhoods within Boston Proper, so Mattapan, Dorchester Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, Hyde Park, etc.
But just this past year, because of the pandemic, we've realized that we had to expand a lot of what we do, to be able to reach our target/priority communities, and to make sure that our grantmaking is more equitable. For example, our education initiative expanded into workforce development opportunities. We realized that, you know, the pandemic changed a lot of things for a lot of families. Sometimes, going to college is not the right choice or the immediate path after high school for everybody. We also expanded our basic services and youth experiencing homelessness work into housing stability - making sure we are supporting programs that support individuals along the housing continuum and their paths to homeownership and independence.
And then a completely new initiative of ours is Climate Resiliency. We’re focusing on mitigation, trying to prevent further issues related to climate change, and adaptation, fixing the issues that are already here as a result of climate change. Back in 2018/2019, Liberty Mutual established our Environmental, Social & Governance department, which focuses on environmental impact and the role we, as a corporation, play in society. We’re committed to this climate resiliency work, and we're really relying on our community partners to help us understand where we need to be. It’s really exciting!
Kasumi: Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you for giving the lay of the land! Now, tell me more about how you yourself got involved in this work.
Kalina: I often tell people that I got really lucky. But more and more, I think that everything that I've been involved in, and every opportunity that has come my way, has set me up to be able to do this work and to really understand the critical nature of this work. Growing up, I was involved in after school programs. From a very young age, the moment I was able to work, I've always had a part time job in the nonprofit / education space. I come from a single parent household. So, while my mom was at work, or she was at night school, I was at an afterschool program doing homework, participating in clubs, etc. My journey started there. I'm a TRIO / GearUp alum, which is similar to Upward Bound. I think this is really important because the first-hand experience and ability to relate is really important for the work that we do here in Community Investments. It also shows our young people that they can achieve and surpass the places where we’ve been in life and career-wise. I also started in the nonprofit world when I worked for Upward Bound and a few other Boston-based organizations. When I came to Liberty, I kind of worked my way up and also laterally. I've been with Liberty since 2016, and the Community Investments team is the third team that I've been on here. And it's my forever team–this is my home. I think that my background and my experience within the nonprofit sector, as well as my healthcare experience, have really molded me and allowed me to do this work.
Kasumi: Wow, that's such a sweet way to phrase it–I'm sure your team is gonna be so happy to hear that sentence! Can you say more about that? What about being on the community investments team makes you feel that way?
Kalina: Yeah, so I think the Community Investments team is the most special team at Liberty. Of course, that’s a biased statement! I always say that we're a small but mighty team, although we’ve grown a lot since I joined in 2019. And our budget for the community has grown a lot as well. We do the work with the same amount of integrity and the same commitment and the same attention. What I love about our team is that it’s very diverse in all aspects: professionally, ethnically, and racially. We truly reflect the communities that we're serving and supporting. I know it makes all the difference when we go on site visits within the schools or community centers, and they’re able to see that we look like them and they look like us. It's so nice when we go on site visits, or we visit a school or an afterschool program, and we see the staff members and the young people and they look just like us.
Kasumi: That's so important, and I think something that is not always true for other social impact teams. So it’s really awesome to hear that.
Kalina: Yeah, absolutely.
Kasumi: Okay, my last question is: what's been your favorite moment of 2022?
Kalina: Hands down, my favorite moment of 2022 has been inviting our community partners to come back into the physical space of the Liberty Mutual office. Back in October 2022, we had an event known as “Homecoming”. And it was really a homecoming for all of our community partners to be welcomed back into the space, and for us to provide the space for that network and see familiar faces that we haven't seen since prior to the pandemic, to catch up on all things–work and personal life. And to make sure that we're still maintaining that connection that we have with our community partners. Seeing the impact and the power in the room was just beautiful. And everyone loved to just see old friends and you know, it's way different than a Zoom call. It was definitely my favorite moment.
Kasumi: Oh, that's awesome! There's definitely a lot of magic that can happen in an actual room instead of over Zoom.
Thank you Kalina & Liberty Mutual for all you do to support our work at Lemontree! Learn more about their social impact strategy here.