Investing in a Cure: Edward Jones and the Alzheimer’s Association
Edward Jones is a Fortune 500 financial services firm. Its more than 16,000 financial advisors serve more than 7 million clients and care for $1 trillion in assets under management.
More than 5 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease. By 2050, as many as 16 million could have the disease. Today, investors 65 and older represent 33% of Edward Jones’ clients and 50% of its assets under care. By 2025, they are projected to represent 50% of the firm’s clients and 75% of its assets.
Alzheimer’s disease is a threat to Edward Jones’ core business: managing and protecting the wealth of its clients.
To address this threat, Edward Jones in 2016 entered an historic strategic alliance with the Alzheimer’s Association — committing $12.5 million over five years to enhance the Association’s care and support programs, provide educational materials on brain health, and fund critical Alzheimer’s research and grassroots awareness efforts. Edward Jones signed on as the first National Presenting Sponsor of the Walk to End Alzheimer’s and created the Edward Jones Alzheimer’s Research Fund. In return, the Alzheimer’s Association agreed to provide services, support and education on brain health and Alzheimer’s to Edward Jones’ clients and associates.
Key to the success of the alliance has been leveraging the geographic footprint of Edward Jones’ more than 13,000 branches to elevate awareness, at the local level, about the impact of the disease on a growing aging population and the need for funding. In its second year as National Presenting Sponsor for the Walk to End Alzheimer’s, 2,762 Edward Jones teams walked in 569 walks across the U.S., representing 100% of the firm’s regions and home-office locations. These teams included 18,559 walk participants and more than 27,000 individual gifts. In another joint effort to raise awareness, Edward Jones and the Alzheimer’s Association set a new GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS title on April 28, 2018, when 1,202 people gathered in the centerfield of Busch Stadium (home of the St. Louis Cardinals) to form the largest human image of the brain.
The partnership has increased awareness among Edward Jones’ clients and prospective clients of Alzheimer’s, the resources available to deal with it, and the financial tools Edward Jones can offer to help investors plan for the unexpected. It supports the firm’s business imperative to be the first choice of the serious, long-term investor.
