Fifteen years after the SFM Foundation began their mission to help make college affordable for students affected by work injuries, they’ve granted 232 scholarships totaling $3.7 million.

This includes $502,000 awarded to 16 new recipients announced in May. Six of these students are from Iowa and 10 are from Minnesota.

Over 125 scholarship recipients have graduated since the SFM Foundation’s inception in 2008, and there are currently 72 active scholarships. Scholarships are awarded regardless of the workers’ compensation insurer involved in the claim.

Thanks to the generous support of event sponsors and donors, the Foundation has been able to reach these families in need for a decade and a half.

The Foundation’s golf fundraisers are the primary source of fundraising for their scholarship fund, and 2023 was no exception. The Minnesota golf event has become one of the largest charity golf tournaments in the state. This year’s event on June 12 raised an astounding $125,000 for the scholarship program. The Iowa golf outing is a newer event and continues to grow each year. This year’s event on May 22 raised $45,000 for scholarships.

Mark your calendar for the Foundation’s annual fall fundraising online auction and in-person event  in early November.

The Foundation is always on the lookout for eligible scholarship candidates. If you know of a family who would qualify for an SFM Foundation scholarship, please direct them to sfmfoundation.com/apply .

About the SFM Foundation

The SFM Foundation provides scholarships for students whose parents were seriously injured or killed while working for Minnesota or Iowa employers. SFM Foundation is an affiliate of Kids’ Chance of America  in Iowa and Minnesota and is also known as Kids’ Chance of Iowa. To learn more about the cause, visit sfmfoundation.com .

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Registration is now open for the SFM Foundation 2023 Minnesota and Iowa “Golfing for Scholarships” fundraisers. The Foundation’s golf events are the biggest fundraisers of the year and pay for most of their multi-year scholarships.

Events will be held on the following dates:

• Minnesota golf event – Monday, June 12, 2023 at Prestwick Golf Club in Woodbury, Minnesota
• Iowa golf event – Monday, May 22, 2023 at Hyperion Field Club in Johnston, Iowa

Participate in the event by sponsoring, golfing or both. Sponsorship opportunities are available ranging from $750 to $10,000.

Space at both events is limited, so register early to secure a spot.

Funds raised at these events go toward scholarships for students whose parents were seriously injured or killed while working for Minnesota or Iowa employers.

For more details or to register, visit sfmfoundation.com/events .

About the SFM Foundation

The SFM Foundation was created in 2008 by SFM Companies, a regional workers’ compensation insurance group headquartered in Bloomington, Minnesota. SFM Foundation is dedicated to easing the burdens on families affected by workplace accidents. Since its inception, the Foundation has awarded 216 scholarships totaling $3.2 million. For more information, visit sfmfoundation.com .

SFM Foundation is an affiliate of Kids’ Chance of America  in Iowa and Minnesota.

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When you use a third-party service to pay your workers’ compensation premium, your payment can be delayed. If this causes a late payment, it can start the policy cancellation process.

To avoid delays, we recommend paying bills to SFM directly through the SFM website. When you pay on our website with your bank account, any installment fees are waived, and you can set up AutoPay so future bills are paid automatically on the due date.

SFM is not affiliated with any third-party bill paying services.

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Wisconsin-based Loss Prevention Specialist Carl Gruber received SFM’s most prestigious service excellence award for 2022.

The Richard J. Marshik Service Excellence Award goes to one SFM employee annually who exemplifies the level of service that has become SFM’s hallmark.

Gruber’s passion and dedication to providing incredible service to policyholders, workers and his team helped earn him the award. He regularly goes above and beyond to ensure that all customers are 100% satisfied, focuses on building and fostering solid relationships, takes a hands-on approach, regularly offers coworkers assistance, communicates well with customers of all types, and has a positive personality that is “infectious.”

Gruber’s job is to help SFM policyholders reduce or eliminate workplace injuries. He offers each customer a truly unique experience that focuses on the employer’s individual risks. Policyholders rave about how easy he is to work with and how he’s able to motivate employees to work safely. His warm, enduring and sincere nature tears down any barriers or apprehensions. People take precedence over policy, resulting in a safer work environment for policyholders.

“Not a working day goes by where Carl doesn’t make me smile or feel appreciated,” said one of his award nominators. “The Dick Marshik Award is the ultimate recognition an SFM employee can receive. I don’t know another SFM employee that deserves such recognition more than my coworker and good friend, Carl Gruber.”

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Earlier this year, SFM established a new scholarship program designed to identify and support future leaders and introduce them to rewarding careers in the insurance industry. The Bob Lund Scholarship is named for SFM’s former CEO, who is widely known for his service to the field of insurance and his continuing passion for making the world a better place.

The group of SFM employees behind this effort, known as the Insuring the Future Committee, chose to partner with Wallin Education Partners . This Minnesota-based nonprofit has an established history of connecting students in need with the support they need to succeed in college and beyond. The Wallin scholarship program is committed to supporting students from historically underserved communities and eliminating barriers for groups that are underrepresented in business leadership roles (see page 100 of the 2022 Wallin Scholarship Yearbook where the SFM program is detailed).

“We decided to partner with Wallin because not only do they facilitate the scholarship and help us find a student, but they also provide support to students in the program throughout their college career,” said Insuring the Future Committee chair Carl Gruber. “They’re committed to supporting their students and helping them succeed.”

Meet the first Bob Lund Scholar

The inaugural Bob Lund Scholarship recipient, Van Nguyen, started this fall at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities as a first-year student.

The major Nguyen has chosen to pursue is Finance, Operations Management. She graduated from Robbinsdale Cooper High School in 2022, having distinguished herself through both academics and extracurricular achievements. The plan is to award Nguyen a scholarship through all four years of school, as long as she stays compliant with the program’s requirements.

In her scholarship application, Nguyen shared: “I believe that a successful college experience would be being able to find out who you are as you’re developing so many new skills and academic enrichments while learning about your interests.”

In addition to sponsoring Nguyen, the Insuring the Future Committee plans to support a new student each year, aiming to provide scholarships for four students at a time. The committee is also working on starting an internship open to Wallin Scholars.

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The SFM Foundation was featured on the November 9 edition of the KARE 11 “Communities that KARE” segment.

SFM Foundation Scholarship Director Debra Zorn was interviewed along with scholarship recipients Haley and Mason Rinzel and their parents.

KARE 11’s video and article showcase how the SFM Foundation changes lives and how their scholarships personally impacted the Rinzel family after Haley and Mason’s father, Greg, was injured in the line of duty as a Cottage Grove police officer.

“We are absolutely elated to have been featured by KARE 11,” said SFM Foundation President Linda Williams. “We are so grateful to KARE 11 for helping us spread the word about the important work we do so we can help more deserving families.”

View the full KARE 11 feature

About the SFM Foundation

The SFM Foundation was created in 2008 by SFM Companies, a regional workers’ compensation insurance group headquartered in Bloomington, Minnesota. SFM Foundation is dedicated to easing the burdens on families affected by workplace accidents. Since its inception, the Foundation has awarded 187 scholarships totaling $2.4 million. For more information, visit sfmfoundation.com .

SFM Foundation is an affiliate of Kids’ Chance of America  in Iowa and Minnesota.

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Injured workers covered by SFM now have 24/7 digital access to their claim information through SFM’s website.

Through a new self-service tool called SFM Claim Connection, workers with SFM claims can access claim details, review payments, download forms and set up text alerts to be notified of payment activity.

“This is the latest development in our ongoing initiative to improve the claim experience for the workers we serve,” said Steve Sandilla, SFM’s Senior Vice President of Strategic Business Operations. “We’re striving to eliminate barriers for the employees we insure, and this tool gives them a valuable new way to access critical information about their claims.”

Optimized for mobile devices

The system was designed with mobile users in mind, as we recognize that a growing percentage of users prefer to access this kind of information on their phones. Smartphone users can access all the same information that’s available on the desktop version. The application even includes a mobile-friendly insurance ID card that workers can take with them to medical appointments.

Empowering workers with information

“Equipping injured workers with the right information at the right time makes their lives easier,” Sandilla said. “We’ve always worked hard to empower our customers with reliable answers, and now we have a convenient new tool to help us deliver on that promise.”

Learn more about the SFM Claim Connection and how it can help injured workers.

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BLOOMINGTON, Minn., June 25, 2020 — SFM ranked ninth among medium-sized employers in the Star Tribune’s Top 150 Workplaces in Minnesota for 2020.

The Star Tribune’s top workplaces were chosen based on anonymous surveys of employees which asked them to rank their employers in areas such as quality of leadership, cooperation between departments, meaningfulness of work, appreciation from coworkers, positivity of workplace, flexibility in scheduling, level of pay and quality of benefits.

92% of SFM’s 250+ employees participated in the survey. Key findings include:

• SFM employees describe SFM as a caring, ethical, collaborative and supportive workplace
• SFM employees rate their job satisfaction 77 percent higher compared to similar business insurance companies
• 99 percent of employees feel well informed about important decisions at SFM compared to other business insurance companies
• 93 percent of employees believe that there is good interdepartmental cooperation at SFM
• SFM employees are engaged 9 percent higher than the industry benchmark

“I truly feel that we are the work comp experts because of our wonderful employees,” said Terry Miller, President and CEO. “Our employees are the heart and soul of SFM, and I believe they are the reason SFM is such a great place to work.”

SFM is known for its caring culture. We do this by helping employers keep safe workplaces, helping injured workers get their lives back, and making sure we take great care of our own employees.

“It’s wonderful to see that our employees feel good about working at SFM,” said Jody Rogers, Senior Vice President, Human Resources. “It’s always been our philosophy to take excellent care of our employees, and these survey results confirm that our efforts are being felt.”

The Star Tribune Top Workplaces designation is awarded based on the results of a survey of employees conducted by Energage, a company that specializes in employee surveys and conducts more than 66,000 annually.

View Star Tribune’s 2020 Top Workplaces article

View SFM’s Top Workplaces profile

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Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal ranked SFM Foundation’s annual Golfing for Scholarships event #8 of the metro area’s top 25 charity tournaments in 2019.

Tournaments were ranked based on their 2019 gross revenue. SFM Foundation’s gross revenue came in at $247,749. All proceeds of the event go toward the Foundation’s scholarship fund.

“We are absolutely thrilled that our golf event has grown into a quarter million dollar fundraiser and has been recognized alongside such exceptional Twin Cities charitable organizations,” said SFM Foundation President Linda Williams. “The number of families we’ve helped far exceeds what we originally dreamed of when we gave out our first scholarships in 2009. We are so thankful to our sponsors and donors who made this possible.”

Business Journal subscribers can view the full list online .

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SFM was recently recognized by the City of Bloomington as one of eight local employers who are supportive of breastfeeding mothers in the workplace. 

Senior Vice President, Human Resources Jody Rogers and HR Business Partner Mickey Willard accepted the award from Mayor Gene Winstead at an August Bloomington City Council meeting.

The award is part of the city’s Breastfeeding Awareness Month social media campaign to raise awareness of breastfeeding in the workplace laws, and encourage more employers to increase support of working mothers. 

SFM was nominated by one of its employees for providing a room for mothers to pump at work, ability to occasionally bring children to work when daycare or school aren’t options, and flexible work hours.

“I am proud that we received this nomination from one of our employees and that our moms feel taken care of and valued by SFM,” said Rogers. “SFM genuinely cares about its employees, and we are passionate about providing a family-friendly environment.”

Willard echoed her sentiments. 

“SFM truly affords people the opportunity to have a family and a career. Our continued support of working parents is evident with this award. SFM promotes family first, and supporting new moms with their breastfeeding goals after they return to work is a great example of how we do this,” said Willard.

Several SFM mothers were interviewed by the City of Bloomington for the following video that they hope will encourage more employers to follow suit. 

Other Bloomington employers recognized include Edmentum, HealthPartners, Minnesota Gastroenterology, P.A., NorthMarq, Prime Therapeutics, TRIA Orthopaedic Center and UMB Bank. 

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