Deloitte IMPACT Day

BITCI News - Sep 29, 2016

Deloitte Ireland runs an annual volunteering day called IMPACT Day which allows the people of Deloitte to give back to the local communities by providing their time, labour and expertise to nonprofit organisations. Some of the projects are nominated by staff, others are selected by Business in the Community. Deloitte also has long-held relationships with organisations such as Matt Talbot Community Trust.

There are two types of volunteer work on the day: traditional and professional skills.

IMPACT Day 2016 has been Deloitte’s biggest success yet with over 700 volunteers and 20 Deloitte partners supporting 24 different charities in Dublin, Wicklow, Limerick and Kildare. This followed an earlier successful Impact Day in July for 225 Deloitte interns and co-op’s.

The stats for the day tell the story of significant advance planning which started back in February:  1,070 litres of paint, 800 pairs of plastic gloves, 450 ponchos (luckily not needed!), 1,400 bottles of water, 680 sandwiches and 720 Deloitte IMPACT Day t-shirts!

Each of the 24 projects was assigned a project manager who visited to scope out the day’s work and ensure the expectations of the charity or community organisation would be met.

A wide variety of volunteer opportunities were available on the day, from sorting dresses for an upcoming ‘Buy My Dress’ fundraiser for the Down Syndrome Centre, to creating a Fairy Garden at the Coolmine Therapeutic Community Centre or fencing paddocks for My Lovely Horse.  Simon Baker, the manager of Embury Close, a sheltered housing complex in Adare, expressed the delight of the residents with the work done by Deloitte which they would never have had budget to undertake themselves.  ‘They managed the day with military precision while still having fun’, said Simon.

The professional skills’ projects, which are distinct from normal pro-bono work, involved teams of Deloitte staff providing advice on strategies, fundraising initiatives, marketing and business plans and also developing an app.

NCBI CEO Chris White acknowledged the positive outcome of the day, ‘The Deloitte team took the time to get to know us as an organisation, develop our communications, focus on what makes us special and then supported us in developing effective and efficient skills, processes and procedures to become leaders in fundraising, sponsorship, social media and event management… Their commitment to the day was extraordinary and exceeded our expectations’.

The final comment is from Claire Bergin, Corporate Responsibility Manager at Deloitte:  “Impact Day is growing each year and it is important to us to ensure that it is truly about positive impact in the community. Our staff support it enthusiastically, making suggestions for projects and giving 100% on the day.   We’re delighted with the feedback from the organisations we worked with and with the success of professional skills’ projects that seem to be meeting a real need.”

 

Business in the Community Ireland is holding a workshop for member companies on 5th October 10am to 12 on ‘Developing a skills-based employee volunteering programme’.  Limited places are available. Register with Louise at lmurray@bitc.ie.

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