Driving Positive Change: PwC’s Journey of Skills-Based Volunteering and Community Impact
Written by Maggie Robb
I joined PwC’s Community Engagement team almost two decades ago and am passionate about helping drive positive societal change through skills-based volunteering. At the core of our Community programmes is the belief that an organisation like ours can have the most sustained community impact by sharing the skills, time and talent of our people. We’ve built partnerships across the charity, social enterprise and education sectors to enable us to connect our people to projects that will make the best use of those skills.
Not surprisingly, over the time I’ve been at PwC, I’ve seen some significant changes in how we support our communities across the UK. One of the biggest shifts over those years has been how giving back to our communities has become embedded in who we are. It’s at the heart of our purpose to build trust in society and solve important problems. We recognise and value the benefits to us through volunteering - the skills our people will learn from an ambitious social entrepreneur for example, the different perspectives around what it means to be a business leader and the positive impact that can have on their day to day role at PwC.
I look after social enterprise and the support we offer is mainly delivered through our Social Entrepreneurs Club, a 400 member network across the UK. The Club aims to support fast growing, ambitious social entrepreneurs to scale their business and find routes to market. We offer 1-to-1 mentoring and coaching, regular group coaching sessions to talk through current challenges, monthly masterclasses on both personal development and business topics and a range of tailored support when needed.
Over the last financial year to June 2024, we directly supported 320 social entrepreneurs, and our people gave 4,863 hours of their time to this. Our staff volunteering allowance is a generous 45 hours a year, roughly half a day a month, that can be used during the working week for community benefit. I’m really proud that well over a quarter of our staff get involved in volunteering, which means that our overall community contribution of £10m is largely made up of time, rather than cash donations.
Our annual volunteering and fundraising event - One Firm One Day
One of the key events in our annual calendar is our annual day of volunteering and fundraising - known as One Firm One Day. Everyone across the firm is encouraged to get involved in some way at that time. It’s the one time of the year when staff can support charities and community organisations during work time that are not part of our main programmes, so a lovely way to connect with more local organisations doing great work. Our 2025 One Firm One Day will be on Friday 16th May.
Amplifying impact through partnerships and collaboration
Our approach to community engagement has always been one of collaboration and partnership. To facilitate community connections and to ensure the support our people offer reaches the organisations and people that need it most, and where it'll have the most impact, we work with national and local third sector organisations that are best placed to make that happen.
We have strategic partnerships with Social Enterprise UK and School for Social Entrepreneurs, who we work collaboratively with to support the sector and channel our efforts on high impact projects. We also work with regionally based partners that understand the local needs and challenges and can help us deliver meaningful change and growth for small cohorts of social enterprises. An example of this is our successful Bradford-based SUSTAIN programme, an intense 6-month programme of support delivered in collaboration with Impact Hub Bradford. We've worked with two cohorts of social entrepreneurs - the first focusing on ethnic minority leaders in the post-pandemic months and the second supporting a group of female founders of social enterprises in arts & culture (in support of Bradford City of Culture 2025). Our latest cohort are all environmental focused social entrepreneurs and this latest programme kicked off in January.
Recognising impact across the sector
Our annual Impact in Social Enterprise Award (run in partnership with the School for Social Entrepreneurs) recognises social enterprises demonstrating a positive social or environmental impact. We welcome applications across the UK sector, including both members of our Social Entrepreneurs Club and non-members. The winner receives a £5,000 donation and each of our two highly commended applicants receive £2,500.
For any social entrepreneurs interested to learn more about the support we offer, or to apply to join our Social Entrepreneurs Club, please take a look at our website and get in touch with Maggie Robb at: uk_social-enterprise@pwc.com.
Maggie Robb
Maggie Robb has worked at PwC UK for over 18 years as part of their Community Engagement team and now leads the PwC Social Entrepreneurs Club - a UK wide network of over 400 social entrepreneurs that shares the skills of PwC’s experts with ambitious social entrepreneurs, to help them tackle society’s most important problems and drive social and environmental change. Maggie is passionate about fostering a culture of corporate citizenship, where employees are encouraged and enabled to contribute their skills and resources to make a difference, alongside learning and honing new skills.