Helping Military Veterans Become Teachers with Teach for America

Lemonade Giveback to Teach for America

Teach for America works to give all children in the United States the opportunity to attain an excellent education. They enlist, develop, and mobilize teacher volunteers called corps, helping them to become teachers who can dramatically expand their students’ opportunities. Teach for America also gives corps a better understanding of the problems in our education system, so they can use these lessons to define their path forward.

Through the Giveback to Teach for America, the Lemonade community supported the recruitment and training of veterans, members of the guard and reserve, and military spouses to become teachers. Now, our nation’s highest-need classrooms can benefit from the leadership, perseverance, and dedication of our military veterans, and these veterans can have a fulfilling employment opportunity and a newfound sense of purpose. 

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 Teach for America impact, and read more about our 2017 Giveback here.