Our Work | MetLife Foundation Impact Areas

Our Strategic Giving Portfolios

MetLife Foundation grants align with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and across our strategic giving portfolios. Examples of grantees for each giving portfolio are included below.

Economic empowerment

Financial health

Resilient communities

Impact investments

Economic empowerment

Empowering young people and adults to be competitive in the 21^st century workforce.

BRAC

BRAC Career Hub aims to enhance employability for 3,000 young individuals in Rangpur, Bangladesh, by reducing unemployment and empowering participants to take charge of their career paths. The program provides tailored career counseling, advanced training, and skill-building opportunities, equipping participants with the knowledge and confidence to navigate the job market or pursue entrepreneurship. Mental health support is included to enhance overall well-being and resilience to professional challenges.

NPOWER

NPower is a national nonprofit working to create pathways to economic prosperity by launching educational training and support programs leading to digital careers for military veterans and young adults. The organization provided tech skills training to 2,100+ young people and military veterans and placed 85% of program graduates in jobs within one year of program completion.

American Corporate Partners

American Corporate Partners (ACP) seeks to combat veteran under employment by unifying the military and business communities. ACP’s Veteran Mentoring Program connects post-9/11 veterans with corporate professionals for year long mentorships. MetLife employees have served as mentors of more than 650 post-9/11 veterans.

Financial health

Connecting individuals to tools and resources that enable financial stability through savings, asset building and preservation.

Trickle Up

Trickle Up will launch CRECE (Spanish acronym for Capacidades Resilientes y Económicas para el Crecimiento y el Empoderamiento), an initiative to promote inclusive financial systems and advance the economic inclusion of women living in extreme poverty in Colombia and Mexico.

CRECE will evolve beyond graduating out of poverty toward financial health and economic resilience. This next-level approach focuses on enhancing women’s ability to manage and grow their businesses, improving digital agency and entrepreneurship skills, and addressing behavioral barriers that limit women's confidence in financial decision-making.

Accion International Inclusive Fintech50 (IF50)*

IF50 is a global competition that identifies early-stage fintechs, driving financial inclusion and resilience. Since 2019, the IF50 competition has attracted 1,086 eligible applicants. These fintechs operate in over 160 countries, reach over 200 million customers and have raised $2.6 billion.

* An accelerator program supported by MetLife Foundation to identify early-stage innovative solutions for financial health of low-income people.

Village Capital—ADAPT: Building Wealth and Resilience for a More Resilient Future

ADAPT identifies startups in the U.S. and Latin America that help communities and individuals adapt to global challenges impacted by climate change, healthcare, wellness and economic mobility solutions that fundamentally shape and strengthen social resilience.

Resilient communities

Opening and expanding access to mental and physical well-being resources, arts and culture, and environmental causes for a more resilient planet.

Ashoka

Ashoka is shifting focus from the drawbacks of an aging population by promoting “new longevity”—a concept that encourages maintaining purposeful, healthy lives as we age with the goal of creating a new narrative of longevity to create public awareness and work towards institutional change.

Vision to Learn

Vision to Learn’s Focus on the Future program provides mobile vision clinics to screen 800,000 K-12 students and provide glasses to over 170,000 students over the next two school years. Glasses are custom made and fit for the students within about three weeks of the exam and warrantied for one year.

UNICEF

UNICEF helps young people in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon gain essential technical, 21st-century skills to help them unlock opportunities for their futures.

Impact investments

Since 1984, MetLife Foundation has made impact investments alongside traditional grants to generate positive societal benefits for our communities. The program’s investments are made with the intention to generate positive, measurable social and environmental impact alongside a financial return, such as for building financial health and climate resilience.

To date, MetLife Foundation has invested $92 million through impact investments. This includes $2 million in Upstate New York through the Launch NY Seed Fund II, which invests in high-growth startups to drive local employment and entrepreneurship opportunities.

Read more about MetLife’s Responsible Investments.

Habitat for Humanity International’s MicroBuild Fund

Objective:
Help build infrastructure for the impact investing market by testing and scaling new financing models, including investment infirst-time investment funds or managers.

The MicroBuild Fund is the first housing-focused microfinance investment vehicle dedicated to helping low-income families globally. The fund lends to microfinance institutions, which in turn provide small loans to families to build safe, decent and durable homes as their finances allow.

HOPE Federal Credit Union

Objective:
Provide access to capital that strengthens an organization’s capacity to deliver services to customers and communities at scale.

Secondary capital loan to accelerate the growth of HOPE, an organization with a track record of delivering financial services to rural, high-poverty communities in the U.S.

NYC Inclusive Creative Economy Fund

Objective:
Improve the quality of life for low- and moderate-income communities by creating new jobs, providing affordable housing and funding neighborhood revitalization.

This Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) Fund lends to nonprofit and mission-driven organizations with affordable spaces for businesses in creative industries to grow. This fosters quality middle-skill job opportunities for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers.

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MetLife Foundation: Our Work

Our Strategic Giving Portfolios

MetLife Foundation grants align with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and across our strategic giving portfolios. Examples of grantees for each giving portfolio are included below.

Economic empowerment

BRAC

NPOWER

American Corporate Partners

Financial health

Trickle Up

Accion International Inclusive Fintech50 (IF50)*

Village Capital—ADAPT: Building Wealth and Resilience for a More Resilient Future

Resilient communities

Ashoka

Vision to Learn

UNICEF

Impact investments

Habitat for Humanity International’s MicroBuild Fund

HOPE Federal Credit Union

NYC Inclusive Creative Economy Fund

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