Committed to a more prosperous and equitable world for more people

Living our purpose includes making a positive impact in our communities through our actions, our investments and our people.

Through The BlackRock Foundation and The BlackRock Charitable Trust, our Donor Advised Fund, we seek to advance more inclusive and sustainable economies through evidence-based mission-aligned grants, community-based investments, humanitarian and disaster relief efforts and employee engagement and volunteerism.

• We partner with 28 organizations worldwide that offer job readiness programs and access to proven savings strategies and tools. For example, in Germany we partner with CodeDoor, a nonprofit that enables underserved youth and adults to gain in-demand technical and coding skills to launch upwardly mobile careers.¹ 
• In March 2020, we committed $50 million to COVID-19 relief efforts. More than half of this commitment has been deployed across 60 food relief, community support, and frontline response organizations serving the hardest-hit communities in 18 of the countries where we operate. The remaining commitment will be fulfilled in 2021 and is aimed at long-term recovery for households and communities.¹ 
• We donated $9 million in funds to match $8 million in employee giving, benefiting over 3,700 organizations that employees either volunteered with or donated to in 2020.¹

BlackRock is also contributing to a stronger, more resilient economy through our investments and in how we serve our clients. Our clients’ investments support businesses small and large, finance infrastructure projects that connect and power cities and make a positive social or environmental impact in the world. For example, we are developing and launching products focused on racial equity and social justice across our active and index businesses. We also maintain a dedicated Diverse Broker Program aimed at increasing connectivity and engagement with minority, women and disabled-veteran owned firms while helping them grow their businesses. And in 2020, we traded $295 billion of securities with diverse brokers in the U.S.¹ We are committed to delivering innovative strategies and serving our clients in a way that meets their needs, supports healthy economies and delivers value for society.

Supporting an inclusive and sustainable economic recovery

BlackRock is committed to helping those in the most vulnerable communities build financial stability so they can realize a better future. One way we do this is by fostering equitable access to skill-building and job training — a need that has grown more acute as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.

The numbers are stark: 255 million jobs eliminated globally by the pandemic, 75 million unemployed young people and more than 375 million workers who will lack the skills needed for jobs in 2030.²

To help address this gap, The BlackRock Foundation has committed $13 million to Generation, a nonprofit organization that transitions people around the world into life-changing careers that may otherwise be inaccessible. The funds will support more than 50,000 job seekers in the U.S., U.K., Italy, India, France and Spain, as well as infrastructure to scale the program globally.

BlackRock’s contributions go beyond financial. We are leveraging our client and vendor networks to match Generation graduates with employers, using our expertise to help Generation scope future high-potential career paths, and facilitating volunteer opportunities for our own employees in communities across the world.

The firm will also leverage internal specialists with subject matter expertise in sectors undergoing rapid innovation such as infrastructure, renewables, etc. to help Generation anticipate careers of the future and develop insights for workforce programs, employers and policy makers.

In each market, Generation’s work is a targeted response to clear employment challenges:

• In France, COVID-19 has forced many companies to reduce or completely shut down their business activities. To help workers whose jobs have been displaced by the pandemic, the BlackRock Foundation is supporting Generation France to launch a new program that reskills mid-career entry-level workers and connects them with upwardly mobile jobs. As willingness to hire entry-level talent increases across industries, the grant will also support Generation France to innovate new ways for Generation’s learners to access employment, such as through apprenticeships and technical mentoring.

• As a result of COVID-19, India’s unemployment rate reached 24% in 2020.⁶ Simultaneously, nearly 63% of employers report facing talent shortages in recruiting.⁷ To help address the talent/skills gap, the BlackRock Foundation is supporting Generation India to scale a national partnership with the Indian public skilling system (NSDC), reaching 30,000 learners across 50+ districts by 2022.

• In Italy, COVID-19 led to a 20% reduction in hours worked compared to 2019, with retail and tourism – two sectors with the highest youth employment – among the hardest hit sectors.⁸ The BlackRock Foundation’s support will help Generation Italy more than double its staffing capacity in order to scale its training platform to 2,000+ learners annually by 2022 to prepare young jobseekers for roles in COVID-19 resilient sectors, such as in tech, healthcare and new jobs in the green sector.

• Spain has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in Europe, with about 40% of youth currently out of the workforce.⁹ Moreover, small and medium-sized enterprises generate more than 70% of jobs.¹⁰ The BlackRock Foundation will support Generation Spain to both help young jobseekers develop the skills needed to access high-demand jobs and to strengthen recruiting pipelines for SME employers.

• In the UK, BlackRock is building on its existing collaboration with Generation UK which began last year through support of their tech accelerator training and apprenticeship programme. Attention is now turning toward economic recovery resulting from the unprecedented disruption created by COVID-19. The BlackRock Foundation will support a multi-year effort to scale training and employment placement programmes for thousands of young learners and mid-career workers into more resilient roles in technology and healthcare, as well as new green jobs opportunities.

• In the U.S., it is estimated that 42% of COVID-related layoffs will become permanent. The impact, both in health outcomes and economic damage, is already being felt more acutely by communities of color.¹¹ The BlackRock Foundation will support Generation USA to navigate learners in Washington, D.C., New York, and Atlanta – 80% of whom identify as Black or Latinx – through a technical training and apprenticeship program into full-time employment in the tech sector, for example as web developers, data analysts, cloud practitioners and digital marketing analysts.

¹ Source: BlackRock.
² Source: Generation; International Labour Organization.
³ Source: Commitment made in February 2020.
⁴ Source: Commitment made in February 2019.
⁵ Source: Commitment made in June 2020.
⁶ Source: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/indicators/indias-unemployment-rate-continues-to-hover-above-24/articleshow/75998561.cms?from=mdr
⁷ Source: https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/news/story/63-indian-companies-report-major-talent-shortage-sales-it-engg-are-hardest-roles-to-fill-1640061-2020-01-25
⁸ Source: https://covid-19.iza.org/crisis-monitor/italy/
⁹ Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-28/spanish-unemployment-rises-above-15-with-worse-to-come
¹⁰ Source: https://www.oecd.org/cfe/smes/2090740.pdf
¹¹ Source: https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-paper/covid-19-is-also-a-reallocation-shock/