The CEO of Iowa’s most profitable company recently shared her perspective on corporate giving and its role in the business’ success.

The Business Record was invited to sit down with Deanna Strable at the Principal Charity Classic on May 30 to hear more about company’s giving and the business case for giving back.

Strable said for Principal, corporate giving isn’t just about writing a check to charitable organizations, it’s a philosophy woven into the company’s purpose, and has a meaningful return on investment.

“Giving back in our communities is core to what we do,” Strable said. “We have a strong foundation. We invest in everywhere that we do business, because that really is, for one, important for that community, but also it allows us to attract and retain key talent. Principal Charity Classic is a pinnacle of that. It is our largest headline event that we do that brings charity into both the community and the way we’re interacting with our clients, as well.”

The event
The 19th annual Principal Charity Classic was May 28 to June 1 at the Wakonda Club golf course, which underwent a $7 million restoration in 2023.

The event is an annual PGA Tour Champions golf tournament that raises money for children’s charities. It’s Iowa’s only PGA tournament, bringing in World Golf Hall of Fame members, including the likes of Ernie Els, Fred Couples, Retief Goosen, Vijay Singh and other notables such as John Daly and Darren Clarke. The 54-hole tournament features 81 players with a $2 million purse.

The golf tournament raises money for local children’s charities, including Blank Children’s Hospital, MercyOne Children’s Hospital, Variety – the Children’s Charity and United Way of Central Iowa. Principal took over title sponsorship of the event in 2007 and since then, the event has raised $62 million, with $8.6 million of that raised in the past year. It’s estimated that the event has a $26 million economic development impact on Des Moines annually, through increased business for hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues.

The Classic recently received the 2024 PGA Tour Champions President’s Award for the experience it offers players, its volunteer support and Principal’s dedication to the event. It also received the 2025 iTIP Sustainability Award for integrating environmental and social responsibility into the event.

Strable said the event is about giving back to Des Moines and the state, through the support of children’s charities by Principal and 200 sponsors.

“It’s a golf tournament but it’s about so much more than golf,” she said. “It’s highlighting how we can come together as a community around an event that ultimately benefits the community, benefits those that need it, and highlights how we can come together and really showcase what Des Moines is all about.”

Supporting children and youths
The amount raised at the Classic has grown each year, and when event planners meet this week to begin planning the 2026 Classic, they may consider adding new charities, Strable said.

“It continues to ramp up, and I think it’ll ramp up again this year,” she said. “We’re expanding the different charities that we support and involve, and so how do we make that even bigger as we go forward?”

Last year, Principal kicked off its Legacy Project, a program that helps students become workplace ready. About 100 young people participated in the program in 2024. As the program expands in Des Moines and into Cedar Rapids and Pella this year, organizers are expecting 200 participants.

“Hopefully as it expands, it is successful, we can expand it statewide,” she said. “Iowa can continue to be a place where people want to work and it helps them become a contributing part of our society. But it also allows businesses to be successful here, as well. So I think that expanded focus on different aspects of [children-focused nonprofit programs] is going to continue to be a highlight of what we do as part of the Classic.”

Supporting children’s charities and programming should be a fundamental goal for any community because one day those children will grow up and be part of Iowa’s workforce, she said.

“Children are our future, and ultimately we need to continue to allow them to thrive and grow, and we do it in different ways. It’s not all about education and workplace planning,” Strable said. “It’s about health. It’s around the arts and when you’re focused on the children, a lot of times, it brings in their families, as well.”

Nonprofit needs
Strable, who has been involved with the United Way of Central Iowa and other charitable organizations for years, said she’s seeing needs of nonprofits at an all-time high.

“Whether you look at the use of food banks, whether you look at the homeless population, whether you look at people who are working sometimes one job, two jobs but aren’t making a sustainable living, that need is just increasing. We’ve been through a period of higher cost [and] inflation that makes it harder,” she said.

Business and community leaders need to understand that the needs of the community are growing, she said.

“It’s important that we’re helping, giving back and also finding ways to help get them to see the art of getting on a more sustainable path,” she said. “We’ve been sustained [as a community] because we have a diversity of economies, but even people that are working really, really hard, their costs are increasing. How do they continue to figure out how to be more successful and not be living day-to-day?”

It will be important for nonprofits in the region to team up to tackle some of the bigger problems in the community, she said.

“Instead of having nonprofits work independently, how do we get them to come together around overarching issues, each playing their role, but ultimately attacking it in a very cohesive and strategic way? I think our biggest opportunity is bringing people together around those common, those biggest needs,” she said.

Charitable ROI
Principal’s charitable giving plays a big part in the company’s ability to attract and retain talent, Strable said.

“We’re finding more and more from the younger generation are choosing places to work where they can make an impact,” she said. “That impact comes in a couple of different ways. We do incredibly important work for our clients, and so making sure they understand the connection of what they’re doing day-to-day, and how it actually is helping people prepare and become financially secure. We lean very much into that impact, as well, but they also want to have the ability to give back in their community, and we can help facilitate that for them.”

Principal allows nonprofits to use their facilities for meetings and events, which is another way to connect employees to the community.

“If our employees can walk down the hall and actually give back to the community, that’s impactful for them, it’s important to them, and over time, it could set us apart from other employers, and make them more engaged and wanting to continue their career with us, as well,” she said.

For Principal’s current fiscal year ending June 30, the company’s 20,000 employees have been challenged to complete 145,000 hours of volunteer service. So far, they’ve reached 120,000 hours, Strable said. The company will match employee monetary donations and hours volunteered to increase their impact in the communities they serve.

Strable said it’s the combination of financial giving and volunteering that makes the biggest difference.

“What we’re finding is teams are coming together to do that, which obviously not only benefits the organization, it doesn’t just benefit the individual, but actually creates teamwork,” she said.

Serving customers in uncertain times
Principal serves 150,000 small businesses and 14 million customers’ retirement plans.

During recent uncertain economic times, many of those customers have been worried about their retirement investments, Strable said. On April 3, when President Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 1,600 points.

That same day, Principal received, on average, 2,000 calls per minute from customers who saw their retirement balances decline, she said.

“The great news is, six to seven weeks later, it’s actually recovered if they’ve stayed the course with their investments and that’s something we talk to people about,” she said.

Supporting business
Some of Principal’s giving supports small and medium-sized businesses.

“It’s important for us to continue to support a thriving small and mid-sized business ecosystem. We have a number of charitable things that we do in our foundation that actually helps SMBs,” Strable said.

In some cases, that funding helps businesses expand, in other cases, that funding might help businesses survive volatile times. After those volatile times have subsided, and those businesses are strong again, they tend to give back to the community, she said.

“What we find is when they see they can benefit from that, [later] when they’re in a strong period [of economic success], then they give back,” she said.

One of the reasons that Central Iowa is a strong community is because leaders willingly support local causes, she said.

“One of the things I love about the Des Moines community is we do come together to help each other,” Strable said. “Our business leaders show up for the community. I think a lot of that is because they’ve benefited from Des Moines. They’ve benefited from Iowa. It’s a place they’ve raised their family. It’s a place that their company has become successful. We just have an environment where when they were helped during tough times, they give back during strong times. And I think that’s what’s most important.”