Connect with us

Business and Finance

Synchrony Commits $100 Million to Grow Minority-Owned Businesses

Published

on


Invests in Ariel Alternatives’ Project Black Fund to Scale Minority Businesses

Investment Builds on Synchrony’s Efforts to Advance Equity Among Diverse Businesses

STAMFORD, Conn., Feb. 2, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Synchrony (NYSE: SYF), a premier consumer financial services company, today announced a $100 million commitment in Ariel Alternatives’ Project Black, which aims to scale sustainable minority-owned businesses and position them as leading suppliers to Fortune 500 companies. Project Black is a strategic initiative of Ariel Alternatives, the private equity subsidiary of Ariel Investments, LLC.

“Building a more equitable, inclusive economy is a business imperative.” – Brian Doubles, President and CEO of Synchrony

Synchrony builds on efforts to advance equity among diverse businesses by committing $100 million to Ariel Alternatives’ Project Black fund.

“Building a more equitable, inclusive economy is a business imperative,” said Brian Doubles, President and CEO, Synchrony. “Our investment in Ariel and Project Black will help give Black, Hispanic and women entrepreneurs the support they need to grow long-term. Synchrony is committed to providing the resources and expertise to advance equity for diverse businesses and communities.”

Project Black invests in middle-market companies that are not currently minority owned, as well as existing Black- and Hispanic-owned businesses, providing capital, resources and minority executive talent. Under Project Black’s ownership, these companies are expected to be transformed into certified minority business enterprises (“MBEs”) of scale to fuel Fortune 500 vendor and supply chain diversity. Synchrony, along with other investors, plans to explore collaboration opportunities with portfolio company management teams to pursue growth strategies.

“Synchrony’s partnership will help fuel widespread corporate vendor and supply chain diversity. With their support, we look forward to creating consequential middle-market businesses, changing the perception of what it means to be a minority-owned enterprise in the United States,” said Leslie A. Brun, Chairman and CEO of Ariel Alternatives. “We are delighted and honored to have Synchrony as an investor in Project Black.”

According to CEO Action for Racial Equity, in 2020, Fortune 500 companies directed an average of two percent ($125 billion) of their total spend to minority-owned businesses, yet many have pledged to dramatically increase their spend. With 95 percent of minority businesses having less than $5 million in revenue, few have the scale to tap into this $1 trillion opportunity.

Advancing equity, diversity and inclusion

Advertisement

These efforts build upon Synchrony’s ongoing commitment to treat equity, diversity and inclusion as a strategic business imperative and drive long term progress. The company’s holistic approach includes advancing financial opportunities and growth among diverse businesses and communities.

  • Synchrony and the Synchrony Foundation’s $50 million, five-year initiative, Education as an Equalizer, increases access to higher education, skills training in high-growth fields, and financial empowerment for underserved communities and its own workforce.
  • In 2020, the Synchrony Foundation committed $5 million to support funding of small business grants through community organizations such as the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) that provides emergency grants to minority- and women- owned businesses and Operation Hope which offers technical support and financial counseling. To date, more than 620 small business owners have received grants and support. 
  • Synchrony has been highly successful in its effort to hiredevelop and advance diverse talent within its own organization through a data-driven approach. The company has included diversity improvements among the metrics used to determine bonus funding for Synchrony leaders. Synchrony has also redesigned its leadership development programs so diverse employees can gain executive coaching, sponsorship and mentorships with senior leaders.
  • The company has committed to hire, upskill, advance and improve retention for Black talent without four-year degrees into middle skill and family-sustaining wage jobs. Synchrony has joined OneTen, a coalition of leading companies that is committed to creating a more inclusive corporate America by hiring and promoting one million Black individuals into family-sustaining jobs over the next decade. 
  • Synchrony hosts an annual Global Diversity Experience for all employees, leaders and members of its Board of Directors to deepen understanding while advancing a culture of belonging and well-being for all.

About Synchrony

Synchrony (NYSE: SYF) is a premier consumer financial services company delivering one of the industry’s most complete digitally-enabled product suites. Our experience, expertise and scale encompass a broad spectrum of industries including digital, health and wellness, retail, telecommunications, home, auto, outdoor, pet and more. We have an established and diverse group of national and regional retailers, local merchants, manufacturers, buying groups, industry associations and healthcare service providers, which we refer to as our “partners.”  We connect our partners and consumers through our dynamic financial ecosystem and provide them with a diverse set of financing solutions and innovative digital capabilities to address their specific needs and deliver seamless, omnichannel experiences.  We offer the right financing products to the right customers in their channel of choice.

For more information, visit www.synchrony.com and Twitter: @Synchrony.

SOURCE Synchrony Financial

Author


Discover more from Daily News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Continue Reading
Advertisement Special offer

Lifestyle

Goodwill created a new high school for dropouts − it led to better jobs and higher wages

Published

on

Goodwill
Graduates found jobs in high-paying sectors, new research shows. izusek/E+ via Getty Images

Patrick Turner, University of Notre Dame

Goodwill

When Goodwill of Central and Southern Indiana realized most of the clients in its job-training program lacked a high school diploma, it set out to address the issue.

In 2010, with the help of per-pupil funding from the state, the nonprofit opened The Excel Center, a tuition-free high school tailored for adults. The charter school offered flexible schedules, free on-site child care, transportation assistance and a life coach. Thirteen years later, research by my team at the University of Notre Dame’s Lab for Economic Opportunities shows that The Excel Center is a success.

Indiana graduates of the program, which has now expanded to 10 other states and the District of Columbia, were able to find better jobs and earn substantially more over their lifetimes than their peers who did not graduate from the program.

At the Lab for Economic Opportunities – or LEO – I worked with colleagues Rebecca Brough and David Phillips to measure the economic return of graduating from The Excel Center. We found that graduates of The Excel Center experience a nearly 40% increase in earnings five years after applying – or roughly US$80,000 more in their pockets over their lifetimes – than similarly situated adults who applied but did not enroll. The LEO team did not receive any funding from The Excel Center or Goodwill in its research, although Goodwill provided assistance with data.

More steady employment

According to our research, graduates of The Excel Center didn’t just earn more, but the jobs they found were more stable. Excel graduates experienced a 22% increase in continuous employment within the same industry over five years than their peers in the comparison group. Graduates of the program were 19% less likely to work in the hospitality industry – among the lowest-paid sectors in the country – and more likely to work jobs such as pharmacy technician, dental assistant or in HVAC maintenance.

A man tends to an air handling and conditioning unit.
Graduates of Excel found jobs in high-paying sectors, such as HVAC maintenance. Mikael Vaisanen/The Image Bank via Getty Images

In addition to a diploma, students earned industry-recognized credentials, such as those in phlebotomy and child development, and certification as nursing assistants and pharmacy technicians. These credentials opened up careers in industries such as health care and education.

Some students used the certificates as a launching point for additional study at the local community college. At the time we conducted our research, Excel graduates in Indiana were more likely to have earned college credits: Roughly 30% of Excel graduates earned college credit, compared with 11.5% of the group that didn’t enroll.

To reach these conclusions, we looked at the data of more than 9,000 Excel Center applicants from 2013–15. We focused on their earnings over the five years before and after they applied to the program. Our analysis compared the experience of Excel students – both graduates and nongraduates – with other adult residents of Indiana from similar backgrounds who had expressed interest in going to The Excel Center but never enrolled.

Advertisement

Why it matters

The Excel program is not just good for the students who graduate; it offers the states who help fund the program a return on their investment. Because graduates earn more, they pay more in taxes, allowing states to recoup much of the per-student cost over the graduates’ working careers. Each additional dollar of government funding generates $20 in benefits for the typical Excel Center student, measured as the present value of their lifetime increase in after-tax earnings.

In contrast, federally funded programs such as Job Corps and Adult Education and Literacy primarily help adults without credentials study and pass a high school equivalency exam, such as the GED test. But research suggests a GED diploma has little effect on earnings, especially for women.

More than 23 million adults in the U.S. lack a high school credential such as a diploma or a GED certificate. They are not only shut out of most jobs but also earn substantially less than their peers who have graduated from high school.

Plans to expand

Goodwill is leveraging the LEO study to expand the impact of its programs. In addition to the 18 Excel Center campuses the group currently operates throughout central and southern Indiana, it has partnered with Goodwill regions across the country to bring adult high schools to Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, South Carolina and Washington, D.C.

LEO’s data was cited directly when Arizona, which had been one of 18 states without a high school option for adults, decided to join the Excel roster. In February 2020, state lawmakers – prompted by testimony from Goodwill and by the LEO researchamended the state’s law to establish a continuing high school program in the state.

Patrick Turner, Associate Research Professor of Economics, University of Notre Dame

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Advertisement

Our Lifestyle section on STM Daily News is a hub of inspiration and practical information, offering a range of articles that touch on various aspects of daily life. From tips on family finances to guides for maintaining health and wellness, we strive to empower our readers with knowledge and resources to enhance their lifestyles. Whether you’re seeking outdoor activity ideas, fashion trends, or travel recommendations, our lifestyle section has got you covered. Visit us today at https://stmdailynews.com/category/lifestyle/ and embark on a journey of discovery and self-improvement.


Discover more from Daily News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Continue Reading

Lifestyle

CareerBuilder and Monster close combination, creating stronger job board for talent and employers

CareerBuilder and Monster have finalized their merger, creating a stronger job board to capitalize on market trends. Jeff Furman leads the team, and further branding details will follow.

Published

on

concentrated female entrepreneur typing on laptop in workplace. CareerBuilder
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

CHICAGO, Sept. 16, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — We are excited to announce that with the completion of all customary regulatory approvals, the agreement to combine CareerBuilder and Monster is now finalized. As previously announced, the combination of CareerBuilder and Monster brings together two strong, trusted, complementary brands to create a job board with greater scale and reach. Together, both companies can more effectively capitalize on prevailing trends in the market to deliver enhanced growth.

CareerBuilder

Jeff Furman, CEO of the combined company, said: “I could not be more excited to bring these two celebrated brands together. We are able to leverage the best-in-class solutions, capabilities, and expertise from both companies to better serve both our candidates and employers and help them navigate the evolving talent marketplace.” 

In addition, we are excited to announce the new leadership team of the organization:

Dinesh Arora, Chief Technology Officer

Scott Blumsack, Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer

Brian Burbrink, Chief People Officer

Leslie Cope, Chief Product Officer

Ahern Dull, Chief Operating Officer

Advertisement

Mark Pacioni, General Counsel

Mike Suhajda, Chief Financial Officer

More details about the company, including branding, will be announced in due course. For now, the company will be referred to as CareerBuilder + Monster, and both websites will continue to operate.

PJT Partners Inc. served as financial advisor and Sidley Austin LLC served as legal counsel to CareerBuilder on the transaction. Jefferies LLC served as financial advisor and Jones Day served as legal counsel to Monster on the transaction.

about CareerBuilder
For over 25 years, CareerBuilder has been a leading global talent marketplace providing innovative solutions to help employers find, hire, and onboard great people, and help job seekers build new skills and progressive careers as the modern world of work changes. CareerBuilder is majority-owned by funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management, Inc. For more information, visit careerbuilder.com, and to learn more about our solutions for employers, visit hiring.careerbuilder.com.

about Monster
Monster is a global leader in connecting the right people to the right jobs. Every day, Monster aims to make every workplace happier and more productive by transforming the way employers find talent and candidates find careers. For 30 years, Monster has worked to transform the recruiting industry. Today, the company leverages innovative digital, social, and mobile solutions and proprietary data and insights to enable employers and candidates to see each other more clearly. For more information, visit monster.com.

SOURCE CareerBuilder + Monster

Advertisement

Our Lifestyle section on STM Daily News is a hub of inspiration and practical information, offering a range of articles that touch on various aspects of daily life. From tips on family finances to guides for maintaining health and wellness, we strive to empower our readers with knowledge and resources to enhance their lifestyles. Whether you’re seeking outdoor activity ideas, fashion trends, or travel recommendations, our lifestyle section has got you covered. Visit us today at https://stmdailynews.com/category/lifestyle/ and embark on a journey of discovery and self-improvement.


Discover more from Daily News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Continue Reading

financial wellness

Preventive care is free by law, but many Americans get incorrectly billed − especially if you’re poor, a person of color or don’t have a college degree

Preventive care costs exacerbate health disparities, disproportionately affecting marginalized communities. Insurance claim denials are higher for minority and low-income patients despite legal exemptions.

Published

on

preventive care
Unexpected bills for preventive care can worsen existing racial and socioeconomic health disparities. Maskot/Getty Images

Alex Hoagland, University of Toronto and Michal Horný, UMass Amherst

Even though preventive care is supposed to be free by law for millions of Americans thanks to the Affordable Care Act, many don’t receive recommended preventive services, especially racial and ethnic minorities and other at-risk patient groups.

The Affordable Care Act exempted preventive services from patient cost-sharing for large chunks of the population. This means that if you receive preventive screening and have private insurance, including through the ACA Marketplace, there should be no copay at time of service, and you shouldn’t get a bill later on. Easy enough, right?

Wrong. Our team of health economists has shown that patients spend millions of dollars every year on unexpected bills for preventive care. The main reason for this is that no specific regulations were put in place to determine exactly which services should be exempted, or for whom, or how often. This omission has left many people on the hook to pay for valuable health care they thought would be free.

Now, in our recently published research in the journal JAMA Network Open, we’ve found that the burden of paying for what should be free preventive care disproportionately falls on some patient groups.

Close-up of hand filling out health insurnace claim form with a pen
Which health care services should be exempted from cost-sharing often isn’t clear. Tetra Images/Getty Images

Inequitable claim denials

Looking at data from over 1.5 million patients, our study demonstrates that insurers deny preventive claims for patients from marginalized communities at higher rates than for those from majority groups.

For example, low-income patients were 43% more likely than high-income patients to have their claims denied. In addition, Asian, Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black patients were each roughly twice as likely as non-Hispanic white patients to have claims denied.

Not only were these patients denied routine benefits, but they also saw large differences in rates of billing errors. For example, patients with a high school diploma or less experienced denials due to this kind of billing error almost twice as often than patients with college degrees. All of these services should have been covered by an insurer.

Research on preventive care access is commonly based only on claims data, which doesn’t typically have information on patient demographics. This limits a study’s ability to detect differences across patient groups. Our study, however, uses a combination of linked claims data, remittance data containing information on why claims were denied and whether they were resubmitted, and demographic data from self-reports, purchase transactions and voter registries. Together, this richer dataset allowed us to examine differences in denials based on race and ethnicity, education and income, including reasons why patients were denied care.

Advertisement

Preventive care is essential

Equitable access to preventive health care is about more than just physicals, although those are important, too. Preventive health care includes key screenings for cancers, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, access to contraceptives, and mental health checkups, among other services. Ensuring that insurers provide equal coverage for these services for all patients is important to improve health outcomes and quality of life for everyone while reducing future health care costs.

Our results paint a picture of the kinds of hurdles patients face when they seek health screenings. Patients from underrepresented groups were not only more likely to be told their care wouldn’t be covered. They were also more likely to have their claims processed incorrectly, leading to more frequent denials and, ultimately, larger medical bills. https://www.youtube.com/embed/Uc2uG6LhFQQ?wmode=transparent&start=0 Few patients appeal claim denials, even though rejections may be unjustified.

Unexpected bills can affect both a patient’s current health and their future use of health care services. These hurdles can exacerbate an already tenuous trust in a fragmented health care system, making patients less likely to return for follow-up screenings.

Stacked coverage denials for patients who live with multiple marginalized identities or who are less able to advocate for themselves can further entrench racial and socioeconomic inequities.

Ensuring equitable access

Our study paints a compelling picture of where different patients may face hurdles for getting preventive care, but more research is necessary to identify how to ensure equitable access.

As our study looked only at preventive services, we will also need to see how our findings generalize to other forms of health care. More research is also needed to understand how other vulnerable patient groups, such as LGBTQ+ patients or patients with multiple chronic conditions, fare when trying to access care.

Our team is currently studying how actual bills for care differ across patient groups and how patients respond when bills arrive. In our study, more than two-thirds of denied claims were never resubmitted to insurers, meaning that many billing errors go uncorrected at patients’ expense.

Advertisement

Equitable policy on multiple fronts can help rectify the way preventive care is inconsistently and inequitably provided. These include uniform coverage of preventive care by insurers, standardized billing practices for physicians and improved means for patients to advocate for themselves. This can help ensure that everyone has appropriate access to lifesaving health care.

Alex Hoagland, Assistant Professor of Health Economics, University of Toronto and Michal Horný, Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management, UMass Amherst

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Our Lifestyle section on STM Daily News is a hub of inspiration and practical information, offering a range of articles that touch on various aspects of daily life. From tips on family finances to guides for maintaining health and wellness, we strive to empower our readers with knowledge and resources to enhance their lifestyles. Whether you’re seeking outdoor activity ideas, fashion trends, or travel recommendations, our lifestyle section has got you covered. Visit us today at https://stmdailynews.com/category/lifestyle/ and embark on a journey of discovery and self-improvement.

Want more stories 👋
“Your morning jolt of Inspiring & Interesting Stories!”

Sign up to receive awesome articles directly to your inbox.

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

Advertisement

Discover more from Daily News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Continue Reading

Trending