KPMG’s community response to COVID-19

Members News - Apr 06, 2020

At KPMG we are very conscious that we need to play our part in supporting society in different ways through this crisis.  We are really proud of the fact that our people are always really generous in terms of giving of their time and other resources to support worthy causes.  There has never been such a worthy cause, as the one facing us right now,  right here on our own doorstep. For these reasons we are accelerating some existing and launching some new Citizenship initiatives:

Helping on the frontline
Our firm’s annual charity fundraising event is the Denis O’Connor Walk held in late August/early September each year which usually raises €30,000 for the chosen charity. The firm is going to make an advance donation of this amount NOW to a charity on the frontline that is in dire need at this point in the crisis to help alleviate some of the immediate pressure it is facing. The usual fundraising activities around the Denis O’Connor Walk can continue as normal closer to the date of the walk which is scheduled to take place on Friday 28th August.

This year we have chosen the charity ALONE because of the fantastic work they are doing supporting those in our community who are most vulnerable to the threat posed by COVID-19 namely the elderly, isolated, lonely and frightened people across Ireland. Right now ALONE’s volunteers are going out to the elderly to collect/deliver groceries, medication and fuel and checking to see that people are ok in their houses as this group self isolates. A number of our people are already supporting the work of ALONE and you can find out more below.

KPMG Reading Hero campaign
In January we announced that we are the new title sponsor of the Children’s Books Ireland Awards which encourage reading and literacy amongst children across Ireland. We all know the importance of reading – it improves mental wellbeing, it increases levels of empathy, fuels the imagination and enjoyment of reading is hugely important for children’s educational success.

Since the current situation changes the way that children are engaging with books but also changes the way we engage with the KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Awards we have tried to come up with three different ways to drive this initiative:

a) Engage Parents/Educators/Librarians and encourage them to nominate their KPMG Reading Hero by submitting a 500 word entry and the winner will get a €200 book voucher and their school will receive €1000 book token and a set of the books shortlisted for the KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Awards. Find our more about this here.

b) Engage Children around the country including employees children and also children of clients, contacts or friends. As part of the KPMG ReadingHero campaign we are also running a weekly competition for all young readers to keep them engaged and interested in literacy. The competition prize is a €100 book voucher each week for eight weeks and we are looking for A4 size pictures to be submitted (either scanned/photo) emailed to ReadingHero@kpmg.ie.

  • Week 1    6th – 10th April  – Design a bookmark
  • Week 2    13th – 17th April  – In less than 250 words, tell us why you love reading, what does it mean to you
  • Week 3    20th – 24th April  –  In less than 250 words, explain if you could meet any character from a book
  • Week 4    27th April – 1st May –  Draw your favourite character from a book
  • Week 5    4th – 8th May    – In less than 250 words, explain if you could meet any author who would it be
  • Week 6    11th – 15th May – In less than 250 words, write a book review
  • Week 7    18th – 22nd May – Design an advertising poster for your favourite book
  • Week 8     25th – 29th May – If you could be any character in a book who would it be and why

c) Engage Our People. We always pride ourselves on our employee engagement and we want our employees actively involved in the KPMG ReadingHeroes campaign. We will be asking KPMG volunteers to participate in a social media campaign we are running called #ReadingHeroes. Volunteers will record a short video talking about their favourite book with the aim of encourage more reading and a love of books. The objective of this initiative is to inspire children to put down the Switch/xBox/Playstation and spend an hour reading a book as a result of seeing these videos. We are hoping that the book choices of our volunteers will inspire young readers. Every day we will feature a new KPMG volunteer and each video will also encourage them to go to the KPMG website and read about the Reading Hero Award and the weekly competitions taking place.

Community Volunteering – Addressing social isolation and loneliness
We have always encouraged volunteering and are in the top five organisations in Ireland for volunteering hours. We are directing employees towards ALONE (or similar charities and organisations) where they are looking for volunteers for their Befriending service. Volunteers are being asked to do 3-4 hour shifts where they will be given a list of elderly people to check in on by phone, and capture any needs they have on a database which will be given to ALONE staff/HSE. There has been an increase in the number of calls and there is a need for a large number of volunteers to support this vital check in service. Our Management Consulting Team have also offered their expertise to work with the ALONE volunteer time to help streamline their volunteer process.