Community wellness

Sun Life has a long-standing focus on community health and wellness. In line with our Purpose, we invest in initiatives and partnerships that help people live healthier lives.  

Ensuring wellness opportunities are inclusive and accessible to everyone is important to Sun Life. We evolved our giving program to place a bigger focus on advancing inclusion through our community work. For example, we embedded principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion into Sun Life’s philanthropy strategy to support those who need help the most. As a Purpose-driven company, we are directing our efforts towards creating more inclusive and healthier communities.   

We aim to play a greater role in addressing health barriers and challenges facing historically underserved and marginalized communities. We continue to take meaningful steps each year to exceed our targeted thresholds for investments in these communities worldwide. For example, within our Canadian philanthropic budget, our aim is to spend a minimum of 5% annually to support Indigenous initiatives and 3% annually to support Black-led initiatives. Refer to our Sustainability Report for more details on the initiatives we support.

Diabetes is a global epidemic that is estimated to affect 1.3 billion people by 2050¹. That’s why Sun Life has committed to slow the advance of diabetes and its related complications. Our main focus is the prevention of type 2 diabetes. 

Since we announced our commitment in 2012, we have contributed over $50 million to the cause globally. Examples of our support include the Sun Life Diabetes Prevention and Remission Clinic with the Montreal Heart Institute Foundation in Canada, the Team Up Against Diabetes grant program in the U.S., and the Hoops + Health program in our markets across Asia.

In addition to our focus on diabetes prevention, Sun Life is also deeply committed to improving mental health and well-being, particularly for those from underserved communities who are often disproportionately affected by mental health challenges. The global pandemic further underscored the importance of investing in mental health support and improving access to mental health care. Our employees, our Clients and the communities we support all benefit from these investments.  

Sun Life employees and advisors generously volunteer, donate to and participate in causes that they are passionate about. These include initiatives that contribute to the health and well-being of communities.

Sun Life supports employees’ community work, tailored to locally relevant health causes within each of our markets. In North America, for example, our You Give We Give program provides donation matching when employees contribute their time or money to registered charitable organizations.

Learn more about our employee giving program in our annual Public Accountability Statement.