Moody’s contributes to our communities through the work of The Moody’s Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the company. Besides making grants to nonprofit organizations, The Moody’s Foundation manages employee engagement programs that include volunteerism as well as its Matching Gifts and Dollars for Doers initiatives. Every Moody’s employee has the opportunity to serve the community through volunteerism, employee-directed giving, or both.
The Moody’s Foundation supports communities across the globe through direct grants and employee-directed giving programs, focusing grant making in education and workforce development. Grants enhance mathematics, economics and finance education and fund workforce development programs for at-risk and disenfranchised youth.
The Moody’s Foundation’s education grants are intended to help create a solid framework of mathematical and practical financial competence for today’s youth and future generations. Major grants fund programs designed to reach youth at different stages of education and in different cultures, and address their particular needs.
For example, math proficiency is extremely low among impoverished Brazilian youth. To address this need, The Moody’s Foundation partnered with Vocação on The Moody’s Numeracy Project in São Paulo. The project’s goal is to improve the methodology used to teach critical mathematical skills. It includes the creation of a new curriculum, the training of educators and presenting the program to more than 250 youths aged 15 to 18. A robust evaluation of the impact on the students has informed improvements to the curriculum.
Moody’s mathematics program in Hong Kong targets both primary and secondary students from low socio-economic status families. The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups, created Community Math Classrooms in two of its Youth “Spaces for Participation, Opportunities and Training” or S.P.O.T.s, which are community gathering places for learning and youth development. The Community Math Classrooms are staffed by tutors and volunteers who use a group approach to enhance students’ performance and confidence in their math skills. The participants can also receive individualized help when needed.
In the US, Moody’s partnered with Girls Inc. of New York to craft a program designed to spark high school girls’ interest in data analysis and statistics. Generation Giga Girls (G3) was launched in 2015 at six schools in underserved neighborhoods in New York. G3 is an elective class in data analytics designed not only to educate participants on data analysis techniques, but also to introduce them to the multitude of careers that use data analytics. Pre- and post-test scores revealed higher confidence in the participants’ ability to do well in their math classes and to understand written discussions involving data analytics. At the end of the program, 91.5% said they know how to analyze or interpret data.
G3 has helped me have an idea of what I want to major in when I start college in the fall of 2016. Although I don’t know what career I want to pursue, I can tell you that I plan on majoring in a STEM field.
Nadifa Kargbo, a senior at The Young Women’s Leadership School in New York, won the first G3 Distinguished Scholar Award in November 2015. The award recognizes girls who have gone above and beyond in the G3 program.
Nadifa was a student in the first year of G3 and has continued with the program into 2016. She participated in the G3 Summer Coding Institute at Barnard College, where she met with STEM professionals and learned about their careers. Nadifa presented her original research at the G3 Kickoff Event in the fall of 2015 and was chosen to give a toast at an event for Ada Lovelace Day, which is a day named after a noted British female mathematician and celebrates the achievements of women in STEM fields.
Too often girls are intimidated by data analytics and statistics. The G3 program demystifies this world for them, teaching them statistical concepts and giving them practical experience with data analysis. They graduate from the program with the confidence and introductory skills they need to pursue higher education and perhaps a career in a data-driven field.
Margaret Rienecker, Managing Director - MIS Global Ratings & Research Support and Board Member, Girls Inc. of New York City
The Moody’s Foundation also supported Girls Who Code’s Summer Immersion Programs, one in New York and one in San Francisco, reaching 40 high school girls in total. The Summer Immersion Program is a seven-week intensive computer science program designed to give girls the skills to succeed in computer science at the college level.
Moody’s employees led workshops on SWOT analysis, stock market crashes, algorithms, and user experience. They also arranged field trips for the students, including a look into information security at Moody’s IT center in New York. The students met one-on-one with Moody’s employees for weekly mentoring sessions, during which they discussed career aspirations, personal interests and educational goals.
The Girls Who Code Summer Immersion Program had impressive results: 97% of participants reported that the program made them more interested in pursuing a career in technology or computing and 100% said they would recommend the program to a friend.
Girls Who Code helped me become the ambitious, inquisitive and determined girl I am today.
Sinai C., 11th grade, Brooklyn, NY
Sinai knew coming into the program that she could be someone who could change the world for the better. In the beginning she was shy and hesitant to ask questions. Over the course of seven weeks, Sinai emerged as a superstar, impressing everyone with the way she asked challenging questions of the speakers and networking with the adults she encountered.
Sinai’s final project with her team was a dynamically updatable website for teens called Latest Outrage. Latest Outrage was designed to give teens a safe place to discuss articles relevant to their interests, such as racism, feminism and environmentalism. The team is still working on developing the site, even though the program is over, to enable teenagers around the world to talk to each other about important issues.
Moody’s three student competitions ask those already interested in math, economics or science to stretch themselves, build their skills and open their eyes to possibilities for their higher education and career path. Moody’s Mega Math Challenge (M3), the company’s signature program, and the Euro Challenge are well-established competitions in applied math and economics, respectively. Moody’s Information to Innovation Challenge was launched in 2015 to introduce high school students to entrepreneurship.
Created in partnership with the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), M3 engages teams of three to five high school students in solving real world problems using applied math. Learn more at the M3 home page.
Similar to M3, the Euro Challenge asks students to solve a real-world problem, this time an economic one experienced by a European Union member. The Euro Challenge is conducted in partnership with the Delegation of the European Union, Working in Support of Education and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Learn more on the Euro Challenge website.
The Moody’s Foundation’s newest student competition is aimed at sparking interest in entrepreneurship for high school students. Piloted in 2015, Moody’s Information to Innovation Challenge (i2i) was created in partnership with The Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship. Students entered one of two challenge categories: the Social Media Savvy Quiz Challenge or the Business of Doing Good Challenge. In the first, the teens were asked to create a quiz that would help their friends understand if they were engaging in risky behavior on social media. In the second, they were asked to design an app that could be used to identify opportunities benefiting their local community. Each category had two winners — one chosen by a judging panel and one by public voting. The winners received $5,000 each as well as $500 for their school or the social organization that sponsored them.
At the conclusion of the challenge, the students reported that they felt more capable of creating solutions to difficult social problems, of solving an unstructured problem, and of evaluating the merits of a project using evidence.
Learn more about the challenge on the i2i website.
I chose this very fun challenge because it really had me thinking about how much it takes for a single idea to transform into a business.
i2i Participant
For me personally, one of the most rewarding experiences is when I sit with high school students who realize, sometimes for the first time, that they have what it takes to be entrepreneurial. That is the spirit of the Moody’s Information to Innovation Challenge – to light that spark of innovation and awareness of one’s potential in the minds of our youth.
Gus Harris, Executive Director, Moody’s Analytics and Board Member, NFTE
The Moody’s Foundation provides scholarships to high school graduates and to adults who return to education later in life. Winners of Moody’s student competitions also receive scholarship prizes. Six veterans enrolled in the Columbia University General Studies Program were each awarded $8,000 scholarships from The Moody’s Foundation in 2015. The scholarships were then matched by the US Department of Veterans Affairs’ Yellow Ribbon Program.
Children of Moody’s US employees can apply for a scholarship funded by The Moody's Foundation. Up to two scholarships for $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study are awarded each year. Moody's scholarship winners are selected by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC), an independent, nonprofit organization devoted exclusively to scholarship activities in the United States, from a pool of applicants who meet the NMSC's scholarship requirements. Candidates are evaluated based on their academic records, significant extracurricular activities and contributions to their schools as well as recommendations.
The Moody’s Foundation views workforce development as a complement to its commitment to education. As with its education grants, The Moody’s Foundation seeks to influence a range of people needing support to achieve job stability and a better life.
Support for workforce development involves both grants and volunteer hours. Moody’s Interview University, in which Moody’s employees conduct mock interviews with clients of grantees, is an important part of how Moody’s helps individuals prepare for entry or re-entry into the workforce. Interviewees come from veterans organizations, such as Edge4Vets, and student support organizations, such as The Cooke Center for Learning and Development in New York and Gladesmore Community School in the UK.
Last year in Hong Kong, HOPE Worldwide launched the Youth Education and Career Exploration Program for students from poor families with the support of The Moody’s Foundation and a matching grant from the Hong Kong SAR government. The two-year program helps students identify careers that suit their personalities and interests while providing practical experience in resume writing and interviewing.
The Moody’s Foundation has long been a supporter of the Center for Talent Innovation (CTI), a noted producer of research into leveraging talent across the divides of gender, generation, geography and culture. The Moody’s Foundation sponsored CTI’s latest research, “Mission Critical: Unlocking the Value of Veterans in the Workforce.” Linda Huber, Moody’s EVP and CFO and a veteran herself, wrote the foreword.
The study offered concrete suggestions to corporate America to help veterans live up to their full potential and combat the misconceptions that surround veterans in the civilian workplace. Suggestions include providing civilian and veteran mentors, promoting that the company is committed to accommodating veterans with disabilities or reserve requirements, and organize a veterans resource group, among others.
See the highlights of the study on the Center for Talent Innovation website.
Veterans are a diverse group, with a range of strengths and areas for development. One of the great contributions of the research by CTI has been to illustrate the distinct challenges that different groups of veterans face as they transition to civilian careers.
Linda S. Huber, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer, Moody’s Corporation
Moody’s employees serve our communities by donating money, time and expertise to local nonprofits. The company supports employees’ endeavors by providing volunteer opportunities—both traditional volunteering and skills-based projects—through four complementary volunteer programs.
In addition, The Moody’s Foundation supports employees’ personal passions by matching employee monetary gifts to qualified nonprofits and making grants to nonprofits at which employees volunteer regularly.
Moody’s employees have many ways to volunteer their time, both on company time and personal time. Our employee volunteer program has four pillars of service:
The Moody’s Foundation runs two seasonal programs—Moody’s TeamUp™ and Extra Measure — that make it easy for employees to participate in meaningful community service both with their own work groups and with colleagues from across the company.
Moody’s TeamUp™ runs from April through June and combines team-building with service. Work groups spend half a day in their local communities providing extra hands to nonprofits in need. In 2015, Moody’s employees participated in a wide range of volunteer activities. Helping developmentally disabled children make handicrafts, sorting food donations at a food bank, cleaning up parks and beaches and volunteering at a soup kitchen were just a few of the multitude of Moody’s TeamUp™ projects.
I loved the experience and I definitely love that Moody's strongly supports volunteering and helping communities.Moody’s Employee
Each September and October, Extra Measure gives employees the chance to take part in a project that is personally meaningful. These projects draw employees from different business units and work groups, giving participants the chance to meet colleagues they would normally not encounter during their regular workday. Extra Measure projects allow Moody’s to offer volunteers to nonprofits that cannot accommodate a larger work group during Moody's TeamUp™, ultimately enabling the company to serve more nonprofits.
As part of last year’s Extra Measure efforts, employees gave a Halloween party for youth in New York, helped install wifi for a nonprofit in France, worked at animal charities and conducted career insights workshops for Hong Kong youth.
What a great experience! To represent Moody's and to give back to the community definitely benefits employees as well as the community.
Moody’s Employee
Nonprofits need more than extra hands and Moody’s employees have a lot more to give. Show What You Know is all about employees using their professional skills, as a team or individually, to advance the mission of a nonprofit.
Skills-based activities allow employees to lend their professional skills to a nonprofit. Show What You Know programs include Moody’s Interview University, career days and job shadowing opportunities, mentoring programs for students in New York and London, and service on nonprofit boards.
I am profoundly moved by the generosity of The Moody's Foundation. The Interview Skill-Building Day was a huge success. This was truly an invaluable experience for our clients. The volunteers provided our clients far more than the ability to improve their interviewing skills — they provided proof to our clients and our staff that there are people who really do care.
Participating Nonprofit
The Moody’s Foundation’s first Nonprofit Summit was conceived as a way for the company to offer its expertise to assist New York grantees with growth and risk issues.
Working with Taproot Foundation, an organization that connects corporations to nonprofits in need of pro bono help, The Moody’s Foundation asked its grantees what information could best help them move forward. The grantees indicated that they wanted to learn more about how data analytics can inform growth plans.
Twenty-four executives from 12 New York metro-based organizations gathered at Moody’s on October 30, 2015 for a one-day conference on growth strategies, risk management and financial metrics. Besides participating in group sessions, each nonprofit consulted with Moody’s staff members on their individual challenges related to growth and risk. Participants left with a better understanding of data’s role in managing a nonprofit.
Here's what participants had to say:
It is gratifying to see how much Moody's wants to provide tools and insights to drive success with its grantees. All the sessions were valuable, and the questions from fellow participants were a great way to learn more about the common challenges our peers are working through.
Participant
The absolute most important part of the day was the consulting [Moody’s experts] provided. The Moody’s Foundation’s support in the consulting areas will allow us to identify our specific growth and risk challenges.
Participant
Employees who want to step up and lead a volunteer project are encouraged to become more involved in supporting community service through Moody’s Up2You and the Corporate Social Responsibility Council.
Like the name suggests, Up2You allows Moody’s employees to design and run volunteer projects of their own creation. Up2You projects include service sponsored by Moody’s Employee Resource Groups and fundraising walks and runs, like AIDS Walk New York and San Francisco and the Pride Run in London.
Employees can help with organizing Moody’s volunteer activities by serving on the 70-member Corporate Social Responsibility Council (CSRC).
Interested employees apply for a two-year term on the CSRC. Once selected, they are the CSR team’s hands in the field, researching local nonprofits in need and coordinating Moody’s TeamUp™ projects. The CSRC meets quarterly to discuss local projects and share successes and challenges.
Globally, employees participate in food, coat and other donation drives, as well as holiday gift giving programs and virtual volunteer fairs.
Even Moody’s customers get involved. Moody’s Makes a Difference is a program in which employees and customers work side-by-side in a community service activity. For example, attendees at Moody’s Analytics 2014 Risk Practitioners Conference assembled care packages for local homeless children in shelters. The packages included a book, a stuffed animal, a blanket and a handwritten note.
Through the Matching Gifts program, employee donations are matched 1:1 up to $5,000. Dollars for Doers grants reward employee donations of time, with The Moody’s Foundation making a grant of $500 when an employee volunteers at least 40 hours in a year. In 2015, The Moody’s Foundation donated a total of $679,184 to nonprofits around the world via employee-directed giving.
