More than 10 years ago, we created a purpose-driven business focused on helping people, businesses and society prosper in good times and be resilient in bad times. We built a business with helping people in mind. We take the opportunity to help society seriously and we work with organizations that are helping to make our communities more resilient.
Generosity — helping others, protecting the environment and making our communities more resilient — is one of the values that guides our work. We focus our generosity to help our communities in three areas where we can have the biggest impact:
Watch the video below to see how we work with our charitable partners to help make our communities more resilient.
With our customers — 1 in 5 in Canadians and 1 in 4 small businesses — we have been on the front lines of climate change for over a decade. And we’ve seen the frequency, severity and costs of extreme weather increase. But climate change isn’t solely an insurance industry issue — it’s a societal one. We believe it’s essential that society adapts to climate change, which is why we work with partners who are developing and implementing solutions to help protect people from extreme weather and build resilient communities.
Intact Centre for Climate Adaptation: In 2015, Intact partnered with the University of Waterloo to fund the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation, an applied research centre within the Faculty of Environment. The Intact Centre is an incubator that establishes best practices to help homeowners, communities, governments, and businesses implement timely solutions that limit the impacts of climate change. Learn more about the Intact Centre and download their reports and home flood protection resources.
Intact adaptation grants: Intact is helping communities adapt to the effects of climate change and protect people from floods, wildfires and extreme heat. Learn more about our partners and their impact.
Canada-Wide Science Fair: The fair brings together about 500 of Canada’s brightest young scientific minds to showcase their science, technology, engineering and mathematical (STEM) projects. We sponsor the Intact Climate Change Resilience Award, which recognizes students who present a real-world solution that helps Canadians predict, prevent, manage or minimize the impacts of severe weather.
A focus on resiliency led us to use our strengths as a leading property and casualty insurer to address the root causes of poverty. We have built a portfolio of partnerships to help address the complexities of this pervasive issue focused on three areas — activating local solutions, measurement frameworks and access to opportunity.
United Way: We match employees’ annual contributions to the United Way and direct those funds to United Way programs that help improve early childhood development and promote employability, skills building and networking opportunities for parents.
UNICEF Canada: Intact is the founding corporate partner of One Youth / Canadian Index of Child and Youth Well-being. We are supporting the creation of a data-driven framework that measures and tracks child and youth wellbeing aiming to make of Canada the best place in the world to grow up in by 2030.
Breakfast Club of Canada: Since 2018, belairdirect has had a formal partnership with the national charity that delivers a high-quality food program across Canada and creates a nurturing environment where children and youth can flourish. Our contribution has helped the Breakfast Club open and maintain three new breakfast programs in schools located in areas of greatest need while supporting existing programs across the country. Our contribution also supported the Breakfast Club’s efforts to enhance its reach by funding an impact study allowing the organisation to perfect its models.
Windmill Microlending: In 2019, Windmill became our first social venture — an innovative way to use our generosity to address the root causes of child poverty. Windmill provides low-interest, affordable loans and resources to skilled immigrants and refugees to help them obtain the Canadian credentials they need to work in their field. Intact employees also participate in Windmill’s mentorship program, sharing their valuable experience and expertise with newcomers.
You can lean more about all our partners in our Social Impact Report.
Our employees live our values every day and work to help our customers and communities. Through the Intact Foundation, we amplify their generosity by matching their charitable donations dollar-for-dollar and donating $20 for every hour volunteered, to a maximum of $1,000 per employee per year.
Dallaire Institute for Children, Peace and Security: Intact first partnered with the Dallaire Institute in 2015, establishing the Intact/Dallaire Initiative Senior Fellow at Dalhousie University, a position that leads ground-breaking research in ending the recruitment and use of child soldiers. Our employees’ passion for helping the Dallaire Institute guided our decision in 2018 to helping the Institute establish a centre of training and learning in Rwanda.