ING Foundation Awarded PRSA's Award of Excellence

NEW YORK, June 3, 2010—  ING Foundation received a Silver Anvil Award of Excellence from the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). The Award of Excellence, which recognizes outstanding strategic public relations planning and implementation, was presented to ING Foundation during the Silver Anvil Awards Ceremony held June 3 in New York City.

ING Foundation received the 2010 Silver Anvil Award of Excellence in the Mulitcultural Public Relations category for two integrated programs related to its Partners in Empowerment platform. The first program was a partnership with Essence magazine to conduct nationwide research to better understand African-American women's attitudes and behaviors relative to their finances. The findings were leveraged in a nationwide media campaign to help educate and empower African-American women to make their own financial security their top priority. As a part of the campaign, Valerie Brown, who heads the retail annuities business at ING, authored an op-ed in Financial Planning calling for greater financial services industry attention to the needs and concerns of African-American women. 

The second program focuses on teaching and inspiring girls to become smart savers and investors. In 2008 the ING Foundation  partnered with leading national advocacy organization Girls Inc. to create the ING-Girls Inc. Investment Challenge— a unique financial literacy program that teaches participants investing basics and gives them hands-on experience with managing money. With the help and guidance of trained Girls Inc. staff and ING employee volunteers, teams of teenage girls in New York, Denver and Alameda and Los Angeles counties in California are managing real-time investment portfolios of $50,000 each funded by ING. After three years, two-thirds of each team's earnings will be divided among the participants in the form of scholarships and one-third will be given to their Girls Inc. affiliate to help with programming costs. The original $50,000 will be given to the next incoming team.

Both the ING-Girls Inc. Investment Challenge and the ING-Essence Black Women and Their Money Survey were featured in a 4:00-plus minute segment on Wall Street Journal Report with Maria Bartiromo. The Investment Challenge was also cited at the Clinton Global Initiative's 2009 Annual Meeting as "one of 13 commitments improving the lives of girls and women around the world." This year, ING Foundation and Girls Inc. will bring the Challenge to Girls Inc. affiliates in Atlanta, GA and Holyoke, MA. 

“The Award of Excellence recognizes top public relations programs in our industry,” James J. Roop, APR, Fellow PRSA, 2010 Awards and Honors Committee chair and president of Roop & Co., Cleveland, Ohio. “To receive an Award of Excellence, programs must be of Silver Anvil caliber and represent some of the finest strategic and creative thinking in our profession.”

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