“My Road Could Not Have Been Charted”
Nyra Jordan is the Associate Vice President of Community and Social Impact at American Family Insurance. In that role she leads grant making as a part of the corporation’s Dreams Foundation. A self-described introvert by nature, Nyra loves that her work forces her to step out of her comfort zone. However, community investment is not where her 28-year career at American Family began.
Jordan came to the insurance company after graduating from Valdosta State University with a degree in criminal justice administration. She had her sights set on becoming an attorney and law school was on her list of next steps. She had a strong commitment to giving a second chance to people who are or were involved in the criminal justice system and learned that she could do work to support people who have had the misfortune of having been involved with the criminal justice system. A quick perusal of the Internet will allow you to find her TED talk on “Four steps to hiring fairly and supporting criminal justice reform.”
In this talk she explains her work to engage companies and corporations in hiring not just based on race, class, gender, dis/ability but also justice involved individuals who may have important work skills that will advance an organization’s mission.
While working over the past several years to directly support communities, Jordan has leveraged venture capital investment and transformative public and private partnerships to address major challenges facing the US. Jordan’s work to alleviate suffering and spur innovation is widespread. In the Mid-West, her work has attacked food deserts in places like Waterloo, Iowa and Minnesota by supporting food cooperatives and community farmers.
Although Jordan started out in marketing and agent training which seems like pretty standard fare for someone going into the insurance industry, she soon took on a variety of different roles in the company. She learned that she liked training and leading people and felt that American Family’s mission aligned with her values. Its focus on sustainability and corporate responsibility resonated with her desire to organize, plan, and direct effective strategies.
In October of 2024 Jordan was named the Madison 365 (large) “Business Executive of the Year.” Although she is reluctant to promote herself, Jordan has worked in a variety of capacities at American Family to get a firm grasp on its work and impact. She even held the position of “space allocation manager,” a position she acknowledges she did not know existed before she assumed it.
In addition to her very public role in community grant making, Jordan has a private life that enables her to immerse in the arts. She is married to artist and illustrator Jerry Jordan and insists that the merger of her business/social entrepreneur side with his creative talents makes for a balanced and elegantly curated partnership. In addition to his help in keeping her from “taking herself too seriously,” Jordan points out that being married to an artist has broadened her perspective on the arts and the role of visual or performing arts in a thriving community. “When people go to an artistic performance or exhibition, they spend money not just in a theater or gallery. They spend money in restaurants and taverns and other local businesses. All of this invigorates the local economy. Supporting the arts is not just the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do!”
When asked to share what is on her professional “wish list” Jordan indicated that she would love to do more investment in social innovations. She is particularly interested in finding what she calls the “diamonds in the rough”—those youth entrepreneurs and creatives who have amazing ideas but lack the credentials or access to capital because of their status. In many ways this desire to look beyond credentials aligns with her commitment to supporting what she terms, “justice involved” individuals who struggle to find good paying jobs to sustain themselves and their families in an effort to fend off the likelihood of returning to prison. She speaks passionately about not judging people by the one mistake they may have made but rather allowing them to demonstrate what they can do and how they can contribute. This stance is quite similar to that of Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) who insists that “none of us is as bad as the worst thing we’ve done.!”
Although she did not pursue her initial goal of attending law school, Jordan has done much to support those that society regards as the “least of these.” Her approach to community investing has had a major impact on individuals, families and communities throughout our state, region, and nation. And she did it all by traveling a road she could not have charted.
