CEO to CEO interview: Foresters and KaBOOM!

Darell: George, I’d like to start by letting you know that everyone at KaBOOM! is so pleased with our partnership, to say nothing of the many children and families our playgrounds will eventually serve. I’m curious to know what first motivated you and your team to support KaBOOM.

George: Thanks Darell—we are excited as well. Foresters is all about families. Everything we do – from our valuable member benefits, to our support for charitable partners like KaBOOM!, right down to the financial security provided by our insurance products – ties directly to our purpose of enhancing the well-being of families and communities.

An important element of well-being is family time. So, it’s important for us to create opportunities for families to spend time together, to play and to be active – which is exactly what we’re doing in our partnership with KaBOOM! Plus, we invite our members – Foresters customers – out to volunteer at the builds, allowing them to enjoy family time while making a difference.

Darell: I’ve been struck by the commitment of Foresters volunteers and their spirit and enthusiasm at playground builds—it’s absolutely contagious. As you know, KaBOOM! has worked hard  to continually innovate our community-build process. I enjoyed mixing cement with you at our build in Toronto and would love to hear about your impressions on building a playground with us.

George: I have loved attending builds! The build site just comes alive with everyone shoveling mulch, building benches and putting together the playground. And with our fun, family activities, it’s great that kids can get involved too. This allows families to spend the day together.

I must also say that I am continuously amazed by how KaBOOM! is able to coordinate bringing hundreds of volunteers together to work in unison to build an amazing place to play in less than eight hours. It truly provides such as sense of accomplishment for me, as well for our volunteers.

Darell: When you think about our partnership, what do you find most rewarding?

George: This one’s easy: 2.6 million. By the end of 2013, Foresters and KaBOOM! will have built nearly 100 playgrounds in North America and those playgrounds will provide 2.6 million children and their families with a place to spend quality time together. Truly, this is an incredible achievement.  I couldn’t be more proud of our Foresters volunteers and KaBOOM! for working together to make a tremendous difference in the lives of such a significant number of children and families.

Darell: In your opinion, what makes Foresters-KaBOOM! partnership so successful?

George: I think simply knowing what a great impact our joint projects have on the lives of children and families.

A great example is our build at Sharon Hills Elementary School in Baton Rouge in March of last year. Before our project, the 300 children who attended Sharon Hills did not have a fully functioning playground; the equipment was out-dated and most children didn’t use it.

Following the playground build, your team at KaBOOM! was in touch with the principal at the school, and she reported that within days of the playground being built, behavior at the school improved across the board. Disciplinary issues fell dramatically and the overall attitude of children improved drastically. The principal said that you could see the children were significantly happier and when children are happy, that means their lives are better. Following the build, the school opened the playground to the public and it’s become a neighborhood gathering spot for the local community.

This was a great success story and one that our Field Team was eager to share with me!

Darell: That’s an amazing story George and a great example of how the partnership positively impacts communities. As you know, we are looking to build on our current momentum and create a greater movement to solve the play deficit and increase family time. Do you have any ideas of how to gain even more on-the-ground supporters and champions for our cause?

George: I think KaBOOM! is off to a good start by spreading the word that play is critically important to a child’s development. Your book is a great way for people to find out why play is crucial in today’s society and how one person can make a difference in the lives of millions of children.

Getting more families and communities involved in local builds and activities will help to ensure that more people are aware of the value of play, and specifically playgrounds. We also need to continue our efforts to promote the importance of quality family time and how playgrounds are a natural focal point for families spending time together.

Darell: On that note, earlier this year, Foresters initiated a research project with KaBOOM! to determine what difference playgrounds make in the quality time families spend together. What did you find interesting about the results?

George: Well as you said, we partnered together to fund a Harris Interactive study about the effect that playgrounds have on families.  We suspected playgrounds did make a significant difference, but we were amazed by the conclusive nature of our research findings: 

Seventy-seven percent of parents agree that spending more time at a playground increases a family’s sense of well-being and nearly 95 percent say that the more time a family spends together being active, the better the family’s sense of well-being.

We can now point to this study as evidence that playgrounds are crucial to the well-being of families, further proving why we need to solve the play deficit.

George: Darell, I actually have a question for you: you’ve mentioned how special our partnership is to KaBOOM!, but I’m wondering what you think is most valuable that Foresters brings to the table?

Darell: I think it starts with the fact that Foresters doesn’t quite fit into the mold of how traditional philanthropic giving takes place. In addition, one of the aspects of our partnership that I value the most is your willingness to bring your customer base to our volunteer playground projects. It shows that Foresters values our partnership, and also values exposing people to our shared cause who probably weren’t previously aware.

We love the fact that Foresters works with KaBOOM! to create unique programs and initiatives that truly demonstrate “outside of the box” thinking. The research on the importance of playgrounds to families we conducted earlier this year is a great example. What makes our partnership incredibly exciting to me is simply that I can’t even begin to predict the innovative  programs we’ll create in the coming years – it’s exhilarating to think about how the impact we’ve already created will continue to grow in the future.