We work to create healthy, inclusive, thriving communities through our investments, philanthropic grants, and leadership. We believe successful companies are only as strong as the communities in which they operate, and in 2021, we helped our shared communities in their ongoing efforts to rebuild and recover from the reverberating effects of the pandemic.
Driving Community Recovery
Our $50 million COVID-19 Relief Effort strives to meaningfully help those most affected by the pandemic and its resultant economic dislocation. Formed in 2020, this effort has provided urgently needed humanitarian aid at the most acute phase of the crisis and, in 2021, helped our communities begin to rebuild, recover, and re-envision.
This work has been accomplished through the Effort’s four key pillars:
Supporting portfolio company employees
Engaging KKR’s own employees as leaders and change-makers
Supporting small businesses around the world
Providing strategic grants to leading nonprofits in our key focus areas
KKR Grants is the Firm’s platform for making strategic grants to nonprofit organizations, designed to find and fund innovative solutions to complex problems directly and indirectly related to the pandemic.
KKR Small Business Builders supports entrepreneurs and their small businesses around the world with $10,000 grants. Through funding, mentoring from KKR employees, and support through our partners at Hello Alice, the program is designed to help business owners sustain their enterprises, maintain or create jobs, and spur economic opportunity as they respond to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and recover from economic dislocation. With an emphasis on impact and equity, the program prioritizes companies that are pivoting their business in response to the pandemic, are operated by historically underrepresented groups, or are providing important community services.
KKR Cares
We seek to continue to generate positive social outcomes and advance employees’ career development through the four pillars of our long-standing KKR Cares Program:
KKR Employee Matching Gift Program
Matched employee donations to eligible nonprofits to $8,000 per employee annually in 2021 and offered a two-to-one match for all COVID-19 and equality-oriented giving
KKR 40 for 40
Provides employees with 40 hours of paid time annually to volunteer with community projects and nonprofit organizations that are meaningful to them
Nonprofit Board Service Opportunities
Connects KKR executives with nonprofit board service opportunities relevant to their personal and professional interests
Pro Bono Consulting and Technical Service
Empowers employees to use their talent and passion to help social entrepreneurs and visionary nonprofit leaders solve problems, scale efforts, and measure impact
Measuring Our Impact
We are carefully assessing and working to quantify the outcomes of the funds we have provided to measure the value that individuals, small businesses, and communities are experiencing. We believe grant-making touched more than 20 million lives in hundreds of communities around the world. Our impact assessment indicates that our portfolio company offerings provided support and benefits, including financial coaching and mental health counseling, to more than 2,000 employees. And according to our survey of Small Business Builder grant recipients, 74% of their businesses would have shuttered without a grant from KKR. We have engaged Fidelity Charitable to review activity data and develop a comprehensive impact assessment of our work, believing that creating positive social outcomes is a process of continued reflection and enhancement.
