Agency Profile: What’s for Breakfast?

Lipscomb & Pitts Insurance

Memphis, Tennessee
Founded: 1954
Employees: 136

Community service is a calling for Lipscomb & Pitts. In 2005, the agency began hosting a speaker series with the Breakfast Club of America. When the national franchise dissolved in 2007, Lipscomb & Pitts bought local rights, seizing the opportunity to reshape the concept. The Lipscomb Pitts Breakfast Club (LPBC) now funds and hosts 150 free community enrichment events a year and boasts 50,000 followers as well as a brain trust of 78 partner companies, including worldwide corporations—all by driven a single mission: “to be a force for good.”

In addition to the free events, the LPBC focuses on strategic corporate giving, collaboration with community organizations, turnkey volunteerism and positive media presence. A weekly newsletter, published book—“Giving Back with Purpose”—and radio and television shows are helping the LPBC take its mission nationwide.

ALLISON CARSON, DIRECTOR, COMMUNICATIONS

The LPBC has changed the way we think about our role as a company and how we can make a collective impact—not just with financial giving, but also with our employees and other resources. Becoming a community champion carries a responsibility to be proactive. We get to play a hands-on role in helping our city. We not only underwrite, but also coordinate, produce and host media productions. We celebrate organizations and individuals who are leading by example and encourage more individuals to get involved. The stories are filled with heart, which is rewarding.

JOHNNY PITTS, CEO

If you’re just focused on networking, you’ll be a dinosaur. You have to focus on purpose. The original franchise event was sales driven, but we saw an opportunity to give it heart. I knew it would require an enormous amount of work and connections. But the corporate culture here is very community driven. The breakfast itself is 90 minutes of well-scripted celebrity galore. First-timers are blown away. But the main goal is to spread positive news and encourage active engagement. Memphis is different now. We’re getting recognized for all the right reasons, and young people are moving to our city.

JEREMY PARK, VP, COMMUNICATIONS

Corporate philanthropy today is not just cutting a check. It’s finding ways to leverage your employees as an army of volunteers and aligning skillsets and other resources to give back. Take what you’re already doing and infuse purpose. Once you base decisions on community benefit, it becomes a contagious mindset and acts like a magnet to draw others in. Going above and beyond to mentor and tutor our youth, beautify our city, feed families or provide new socks and shoes to kids in need enables us to build trust that has a windfall effect. Everyone benefits and new doors are opened for us all.