The St. Paul Slates $2.4M In Balto Area Contributions; Will Honor USF&G Commitments
The St. Paul Companies will commit $2.4 million in new charitable contributions, or about 15.5 percent of its total community affairs budget, in the Baltimore area during 1998, and will also speed up the payments of the USF&G Foundation's outstanding multiyear commitments, The St. Paul announced this week.
"We are committed to community involvement in the communities where we live and do business, and Baltimore is no exception," says Douglas W. Leatherdale, St. Paul Companies chairman, president and chief executive officer. "This is a community with tremendous opportunities and we will be a strong presence here. We're honoring the commitments made by the USF&G Foundation and we're adding to it with both human and financial resources in the form of employee involvement and charitable contributions."
The St. Paul also will honor $2.02 million in outstanding multiyear commitments made by the USF&G Foundation to organizations including the American Red Cross ($82,500), Baltimore Museum of Art ($300,000), Loyola College ($1.25 million), National Aquarium ($12,500) and Villa Julie College ($375,000). The multiyear commitments, which were to be paid over six-to-10 years, will be paid off in 1998.
Several new grants to Baltimore-area nonprofits will be announced in August when the company releases its second-quarter grants list. Grant decisions will be based on the company's community involvement guidelines. "As with our business decisions, we carefully consider which nonprofit organizations we will support based on our community affairs strategy," says Community Affairs Officer Mary Pickard.
"We focus our community involvement activities around four key areas that we believe help to achieve the best results for the community, The St. Paul and our employees over the long term," she says. The company's current focus areas are education, community development, arts and culture, and advancing the nonprofit, voluntary sector.
The St. Paul pledges 2 percent of its pretax operating earnings to communities each year. In 1997, commitments of $11 million were made to nonprofit organizations in the Saint Paul-Minneapolis area, in U.S. cities where the company has major offices, and in three countries where the company has a major business presence: Belgium, England and South Africa.
The St. Paul was a founding participant in the Minnesota Keystone Awards program, which encourages and promotes philanthropy by recognizing those corporations and businesses committed to charitable giving. The company was also instrumental in expanding the program from Minneapolis to Saint Paul.