In 2025, some of the proceeds from the Principal Charity Classic were designated for a hearing aid fund at Blank Children’s Hospital to help families cover the often substantial cost of hearing devices for infants and children.
“Hearing aids are not covered by health insurance, and as you can imagine, hearing aids are crucial not only for a child’s hearing but also their speech development,” said Erica Axiotis, executive director of the UnityPoint Health-Des Moines Foundation.
“For a lot of families, the out-of-pocket expense is out of reach, so philanthropy makes a big impact in providing hearing aids to children as they grow,” she said.
Last week marked the 20th anniversary of Principal Financial Group serving as title sponsor of the Principal Charity Classic, an annual PGA Tour Champions tournament that began in Des Moines in 2001. During the 20-year period, the tournament has generated over $73 million for initiatives aimed at improving the education, health, financial security and stability of Iowa youths.
Principal Financial Group, headquartered in Des Moines, is a global financial company with 19,000 employees located in offices around the world. In 2023, the company announced it was extending through 2028 its sponsorship of the annual PGA Tour Champions tournament.
“We’d love to see the impact to charities [the golf tournament has had] get to $100 million by 2028,” said Deanna Strable, Principal’s president and CEO. “We believe we can hit that mark, or hopefully exceed it.”
Alex McCarty, Principal Charity Classic’s tournament director, said the goal is realistic.
“Businesses might compete against each other on a day-to-day basis, but with events like this they come together,” he said. “They know the power of working together. They know where their money is going and the good it is doing.”
In 2025, the golf tournament raised a record $10.6 million for initiatives aimed at helping organizations focused on Iowa youths. The amount raised was the most of any PGA Champions Tour event in the U.S., McCarty said. “As we get the word out about the tournament, we’ll get additional sponsors and we’ll be able to raise more money for the charities we support.”
Blank’s hearing aid fund was among the charity’s recipients of donations.
Blank Children’s Hospital has received $2.2 million from the golf charity since Principal became the event’s sponsor. Money from the charity has been used to support STAR/Children Development Center, perinatal and pediatric palliative care, Blank Compassion Fund and the pediatric hearing aid fund.
“Because funding was available from the charity [golf tournament], a lot more kids were able to get hearing aids,” Axiotis said. “There are a lot of things that are crucial and important to the development of a child that sometimes don’t get reimbursements from insurance. That’s where philanthropy steps in.”
Blank is one of the Principal Charity Classic’s four Tournament Charity Partners. The others are MercyOne Children’s Hospital, Variety – the Children’s Charity of Iowa and United Way of Central Iowa.
The three-day, 54-hole Principal Charity Classic, the only PGA tournament held in Iowa, attracts corporate visitors and golf enthusiasts from around the world to watch some of golf’s biggest names compete for $2 million in prize money. This year’s field included Cedar Rapids native Zach Johnson, who turned 50 in February, becoming eligible to play in the PGA Tour Champions event, which is only open to former PGA Tour winners who are 50 or older.
In addition to its charitable contributions, the tournament is a major economic engine for Central Iowa, generating an estimated $26 million in annual economic impact.
The tournament is also a way to attract new businesses to the area and attract and retain workers for Iowa companies, said Tiffany Tauscheck, president and CEO of the Greater Des Moines Partnership.
“We invite some of our prospects and new and existing clients to attend the [tournament] as our guest,” she said. “We are also able to market the region overall through elements such as the Golf Channel. It’s not unusual for us to hear from folks all over across the country following the Principal Charity Classic, because they were either here and experienced it … or they saw some of the TV coverage, and now they want to learn more about either living here or bringing a business here.”
The tournament also showcases how Central Iowa’s business community invests in nonprofits and specifically charities focused on children and youths, both Tauscheck and Strable said.
“The Principal Charity Classic is an event that brings great golf to Des Moines but it does it around a philanthropic center,” Strable said. The tournament “allows us to demonstrate the strong community we have and the sustained commitments by so many people in the community. But the bottom line is what we give back in terms of charitable [donations] and focus on the youth.”
One of the programs funded by the tournament is the Legacy Project: Career Ready Collective that prepares high school students for future work. Interactive sessions and hands-on activities allow students to build professional skills and gain exposure to a range of career pathways.
The program, backed by several corporate partners, pays students a stipend so they don’t have to choose between a summer job and career training.
The six-week career development program, in its third year, “sets students up for future workforce opportunities,” Tauscheck said.
Sessions are typically held at Principal’s corporate headquarters in Des Moines and satellite sites in Cedar Rapids, Newton, Pella, Perry and St. Paul, Minn. About 100 students participated in the program in its first year; this year, it has 390 students.
While the Principal Charity Classic’s philanthropic mission has remained the same over the past 20 years, programs that benefit from the tournament have evolved, Strable said.
“The Legacy Project: Career Ready Collective is one example of that,” she said. “It’s a community-driven career development program that didn’t exist a few years ago. The first year it was just in Des Moines and then we added satellite sites. It’s an example of a newer initiative that we’ll continue to leverage.”
Principal Financial Group typically invests in things for the long term, Strable said. The company’s relationship with the tournament is no different, she said.
“As long as we see the engagement across our employees, across our clients, across sponsors and the other large institutions here in Des Moines, we would love to continue to have our name behind the tournament,” she said.