Building a Safe Home for the Quitéño Family with New Story

Lemonade’s Giveback to New Story

New Story builds safe homes for the homeless, and aims to transform slums into thriving communities in the developing world. They help people like Ernesto & Vilma Elizabeth Alfaro Quitéño, who lived with their two children in one room in the back of a family member’s house in El Salvador. Their single room served as a bedroom, living room and kitchen for four people.

Thanks to Lemonade members, no longer. Through the Giveback to New Story, the Lemonade community built a new home for the Quitéño family, from start to finish. Now, the Quitéño family will have a safe home to return to every day, giving them a stable foundation to improve their health, education, and income.

The 2017 Lemonade Giveback

Our total Giveback for 2017 was $53,174, and this number calls for some context: this amounts to 10.2% of our revenue. As a point of reference, the Fortune 100 give 0.08% of their revenues each year (CECP p.36). So if year-one is anything to go by, Giveback has the potential to 100X that benchmark. Time will tell, but early indications are encouraging.  

We had 21 cause-centric-groups as of June 30, and 14 (66.7%) received a Giveback. Here’s a fun fact: among these 14 causes, an average of 18% of premiums were given to charity. These funds can go a long way when put in the right hands.

But it’s more than just numbers. Giveback amounts to a change in kind, because it isn’t dependent on profits (Lemonade hasn’t turned a profit yet). We think of Giveback as a social contract among our community, where the size and allocation is determined not by our big profits or big hearts, but by the good fortune and good behavior of our members. Remember, it’s not our money.

As our Chief Behavioral Officer Dan Ariely explained, “it’s money our community has entrusted to us, first and foremost to help our members recover from unfortunate events in their lives, and secondly, to help the less fortunate in our broader community.”

Share your New Story impact, and read more about our 2017 Giveback here.