Columbus Business First Covers Bread Financial’s $1.8 Million Investment in ROX
By Amanda Tonoli – Staff reporter , Columbus Business First
Nov 16, 2023
A Columbus public company has invested $1.8 million in a locally headquartered
nonprofit to expand in-school programming for girls across the country.
Bread Financial Holdings Inc. (NYSE: BFH) is helping finance Ruling Our Experiences'
mission to implement girl-positive education in all 50 states. Rox (stylized ROX) offers a
20-week program dedicated to teaching girls how to handle challenges, create
supportive relationships, navigate social media, manage stress and foster academic and
leadership skills.
Today it serves more than 500 schools in 30 states.
"Rox is leading the way to understand girls’ experiences and creates programming to
build their confidence, make positive life and relationship choices, and empower them
now and in the future, developing the next generation of leaders... We believe investing
in girls from an early age will create a lifelong foundation for success," Val Greer,
executive vice president and chief commercial officer at Bread Financial, said in an
email.
Rox says it has served more than 40,000 girls since 2006. Its latest annual operating
budget was about $2.5 million.
Bread Financial has been a longtime supporter of the nonprofit. The company, formerly
Alliance Data, has provided more than $3 million in financial support, including funding
the 2017 and 2023 Girls’ Index reports, research Rox conducted to better understand
issues facing girls today.
Bread Financial's latest investment will go toward training school leaders to facilitate
Rox programming in schools, spreading the organization's brand awareness and
discovering ways to deepen connections and create bigger impacts in young girls' lives,
Rox CEO Lisa Hinkelman told Columbus Business First.
"We're supporting parents to be able to have better conversations and generate more
supportive environments for their girls," she said. "We're equipping teachers and
counselors and coaches and mentors with tools to better support the girls in their lives.
For us, it's about how we get to the girls to directly impact and empower them, but then
also how we use what we know to educate and influence the adults who are part of her
life."
That's something Bread Financial leaders believe in.
"The same girls who participated in the Girls’ Index Report are those who are our future
doctors, CEOs, public servants, mothers, and role models to others," Greer said. "It is
incumbent upon all of us to recognize where we have and should play a role in investing
in them to ensure positive outcomes."
In addition to Bread Financial's philanthropy, Rox also recently received $250,000 from
the Columbus Blue Jackets Foundation to help reach all 50 states with this same
programming.