Honored within the Industry Impact category, Brightside helps support financially ill employees address urgent needs and face complex challenges that cannot be solved by CFP-led financial planning or one-size-fits-all financial education.
October 9, 2024 — Brightside, the only Financial Care solution for employers, today announced that it has been named to the BenefitsPRO Luminaries Class of 2024 within the Industry Impact category for the second year in a row. Brightside was chosen for its proven success in promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion within the benefits industry and the larger community. This recognition highlights the company’s significant contributions to shaping a more inclusive future for the employee benefits sector.
Brightside helps support over 800,000 families by meeting employees where they are, in moments that matter, to address urgent financial challenges and improve their financial health. Whether employees are struggling to pay bills or need help planning for the future, Brightside helps employees navigate their unique financial situations in ways traditional financial wellness solutions can’t. To date, Brightside has put roughly $56 million back in the pockets of participating employees, which averages more than a week’s pay.
“We are committed to driving meaningful results for employers by enhancing the financial health of employees who are most at risk of financial hardship,” said Tom Spann, CEO and co-founder of Brightside. “This acknowledgment highlights the impact of our team’s dedication to this mission, and we are proud to be recognized among such a distinguished group of innovators in the employee benefits space.”
Brightside created the Financial Care category in employee benefits to resolve employees’ unique financial challenges in their moments of need. Serving frontline employees at top Fortune 500 organizations, such as Amazon and Unum, the company’s mission is to improve the financial health of working families and help income go further for the seven in 10 Americans living paycheck to paycheck. Brightside’s Financial Assistants, proprietary rules engine, and innovative products and solutions have helped tens of thousands of workers address their financial needs, including building emergency savings and reducing debt, resulting in improved productivity, retention, and workforce diversity, while lowering healthcare costs.
Additionally, Brightside’s team represents those it serves to ensure trusting relationships can be built with clients. To that end, they consistently hire Financial Assistants from various backgrounds, industries, education, ages, and geographies. Brightside’s Financial Assistants work 1:1 with clients to determine their financial needs, goals, motivators, barriers, and life situations to identify appropriate options tailored to the employee, all while helping employees take steps that improve their financial situations, and ultimately, their financial lives.
They address employees’ urgent needs by connecting them with free and affordable resources and programs, help them manage and reduce debt including student loans, and improve their credit scores. To help paychecks stretch further, Financial Assistants also help Brightside users create spending plans, prioritize bills, and save money on things they buy every day. In addition, they help employees start to build savings, navigate life events including divorce, illness, and changes in income, and understand ways to prepare for retirement.
The recognition from BenefitsPRO celebrates top professionals and organizations within the benefits industry that strive to transform and humanize the field and set a bright example within the business. The 2024 honorees were selected by a panel of industry experts based on how well they stated and achieved goals with regard to the nomination category; how impactful their work has been; how dedicated the nominee has been to furthering modernization and humanization in the insurance business; and the nominee’s commitment to the highest ethical standards, as well as dedication to service and excellence.
“Our 2024 honorees are leading examples of the progress our industry continues to make toward creating more equitable, affordable benefits and transparent, high-quality health care for millions of Americans,” says BenefitsPRO Editor-in-Chief Paul Wilson. “BenefitsPRO is proud to once again shine a spotlight on thought leaders and innovators in our industry who are doing things the right way.”
About Brightside
Brightside created Financial Care, a new category in employee benefits, to help reduce financial stress for the seven in 10 Americans who are not financially healthy. Since 2018, its Financial Assistants, proprietary rules engine, and innovative product platform have helped thousands of families save more than $1,200 annually (on average) while improving emergency savings and reducing debt, resulting in improved retention, productivity, and workforce diversity while lowering healthcare costs. Brightside is located in San Francisco, CA; Chandler, AZ; and Philadelphia, PA. For more information, please visit gobrightside.com.
About BenefitsPRO
BenefitsPRO.com is the #1 online destination for every benefits professional. The site is designed to quickly provide benefits brokers/consultants, benefits managers and retirement advisors with the news, resources, and tools they need. Illuminating the complex and ever-changing benefits market, it is the roadmap to thriving in a disrupted environment. The site combines established resources and news reporting capabilities with proprietary market data and relevant content aggregated from across the web to create one distinct and vital information source. We celebrate those who are adapting and succeeding in new ways, translate the impact of regulations and technology into digestible, shareable information, and arm benefits professionals with the sales and prospecting tools and strategies needed to differentiate and grow their practices.
