Strategic philanthropy and volunteering

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Supporting our communities

The cost of living crisis is affecting the most disadvantaged groups across all our communities, and it is having an especially significant impact on the charity sector.

As part of our values, we have a responsibility to the communities we serve. We’re proud of the support our people give to help our communities and we offer all of our colleagues up to six days of volunteering time. Colleagues can take part in centrally organised programmes such as supporting a school or local charity, becoming a Charity Trustee or School Governor, or they can support a cause they are personally passionate about through a self-organised activity. Many colleagues also choose to volunteer for our national charity, Marie Curie.

Our national charity partnership with Marie Curie

In 2021, our colleagues selected Marie Curie as KPMG’s National Charity partner, initially until October 2023. We support Marie Curie through fundraising, volunteering, pro bono and thought leadership programmes. In recognition of the current cost of living crisis, we have taken the decision to extend the partnership by a year, enabling us to provide additional support through these challenging times.

Total funds raised for Marie Curie / £1,232,039 FY22 & FY23

Number of nursing care hours our funds raised could help to support / 61,602 FY22 & FY23

KPMG UK’s partnership with Marie Curie to date has been fantastic, and I’m so proud of everything we have achieved together. Thousands of KPMG colleagues have enthusiastically engaged with the partnership through a variety of fundraising, volunteering and pro bono initiatives. Marie Curie’s work has an immeasurable impact on the lives of people affected by terminal illness, death and bereavement across the UK and it’s a cause that resonates with so many of us at KPMG UK. I’ve really enjoyed working with the Marie Curie team and we’re so excited to see what we can do together over the coming year.
Rachel Hopcroft CBE / Head of Corporate Affairs, KPMG in the UK

We are absolutely delighted at Marie Curie that our partnership with KPMG has raised such an astonishing total in just two years. When we first announced our partnership back in late 2021, all of us at Marie Curie were thrilled with the prospect of a new flagship partnership with a clear, shared belief: that everyone, regardless of their background, should have the same level of care, support, and guidance whatever terminal illness they are facing. The impact this will have on the people we support is staggering and £1m could fund over 43,000 nursing hours. My huge gratitude to KPMG colleagues for making a true difference to lives of families across the UK living with terminal illness. Thank you for continuing to fundraise and support Marie Curie’s mission and work to close the gap in end-of-life care.
Matthew Reed / Chief Executive, Marie Curie

Fundraising

Every pound raised will support families across the UK affected by terminal illness, providing expert care, guidance and support at one of the most critical times in their lives.

Total value of pro
bono time / £360,379 FY22 & FY23

Number of colleagues who’ve given their time to support Marie Curie / 9,221 FY22 & FY23

The KPMG Big Walks 2023

The KPMG Big Walks 2023 raised over £320,000 for Marie Curie!. This could help Marie Curie deliver 16,000 hours of expert nursing care, which is 4,900 more hours than last years’ fundraising total.

“We are thrilled that KPMG colleagues across the UK have smashed their fundraising target and have raised £320,000 for Marie Curie at this year’s KPMG Big Walks! Thousands of colleagues signed up to 10 events from Aberdeen to Plymouth and every pound raised will go to supporting families up and down the UK affected by death, dying and bereavement.”

"We are so proud of our partnership with KPMG, which continues to go from strength to strength. On behalf of the families Marie Curie supports, thank you all very much indeed.”

Matthew Reed / Chief Executive at Marie Curie

10 walks from June 16 to July 14, from Aberdeen to Plymouth
£320,000 raised through the walks (£200,000 target)
94,000km travelled through the walks and Big Distance challenge walked!

Pro bono

We support our colleagues to use their professional skills and expertise to deliver transformational pro bono projects for Marie Curie, aiding their mission to address the inequality of end of life care and ensure a better end of life experience for all.

Integrated Care Boards Pro bono

In 2022, Marie Curie successfully lobbied for an amendment to the Health and Care Act to include a specific requirement for newly formed Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) to commission palliative and end of life care (PEoLC) services that meet the needs of their local population. Marie Curie and KPMG discussed the opportunity to work on a project that would have the greatest impact on improving palliative and end of life care services. The work was completed in September 2023. This multidisciplinary project set out to achieve two things; understand how the 42 ICBs were meeting the statutory requirement on PEoLC in relation to adults and to understand what resources might be needed by ICBs to support them to meet the statutory requirements.

The research that KPMG completed highlighted that there was a lack of consistency when it comes to strategic focus on palliative and end of life care services, and ICBs were facing challenges with workforce and funding. This piece of work also highlighted that ICBs were struggling to make the case for further investment or further direction of resources for end of life care services. To support ICBs further, the KPMG team developed a step by step guide to build the value case for further investment for palliative and end of life interventions showing what the future state could look like if these services were improved. This piece of pro bono has the potential of being a real game changer for the way integrated care boards use their resources and arrange palliative and end of life care services going forward, it has the potential to help reduce system pressures on the NHS by making the case for investment in end of life care services in the community. The team is in discussions with Marie Curie to expand on this piece of work.

Volunteering

Whether our colleagues have a minute to sign a petition, an hour to thank a Marie Curie Nurse or a day or more to use their skills to help the charity tackle urgent business needs, we provide volunteering opportunities for everyone to be able to support Marie Curie.

Top of the Shops

Top of the Shops is our firm-wide volunteering opportunity where colleagues get into teams and takeover a Marie Curie charity shop for a day. Teams will compete across the year to raise the most money through till sales and top the charts.

“It was an amazing and insightful day into how much time, effort and love goes into running Marie Curie shops all across the UK. We took part in various tasks from sorting the charity bags which came through the door and working on the tills to tidying up the shop floor and dressing the mannequins.”

Amy Greenstein / Assistant Manager, KPMG in the UK

Thought Leadership

We aim to use the collective voice and skills of KPMG and Marie Curie to ensure that current end of life care, services and support networks reach the highest standards.

An example of this is a piece of work we’re conducting which explores the cost of energy for households across the UK with a terminally ill person. We want to understand the opportunities and gaps that exist and identify any initiatives which could help households with a terminally ill member manage their energy costs.

Governance for Better

At KPMG, we have long been encouraging all our colleagues, irrespective of grade, to take up governance volunteering roles such as charity trustees and school governors through our Governance for Better programme, because we recognise the value that all KPMG colleagues can bring to these roles, and similarly, the value they can all get out. In recent years, our Governance for Better programme has been developed even further to enhance the support we have given to these colleagues since the start of the pandemic. We recognise how valuable our colleagues have been in helping schools, colleges and charities to come back stronger. The enhanced programme features a series of webinars from industry experts, information and recruitment sessions for those considering taking on such a role, peer to peer networking events, in addition to latest news, support and guidance.

Using our expertise in the community

School governors volunteer at board-level to set the strategic vision for the school, provide challenge and support, and oversee finances. It’s a fantastic opportunity to have a real impact in the community while gaining skills to bring back into the workplace. Our school governor volunteers are involved in budget management, health and safety and data analysis. They help ensure a wide curriculum is delivered so every child has the opportunity to thrive.

“Whenever you’re working with people and trying to push a particular strategy or mission statement it will always benefit you in life. The challenges, the camaraderie, the diversity, and the amazing things teachers do make me feel positive about the world and how we as people can always make a difference whether big or small. Dedicating a couple of hours a month is worth it for me and I’d highly recommend it!”

Avril Thomas / Executive Lead, KPMG in the UK

Supporting emergency appeals

We respond to global emergencies via immediate fundraising appeals, which the firm and colleagues contribute to.

£85,000 towards flood relief in Pakistan via the British Red Cross

September 2022

£140,000 to UNICEF’s Ukraine Emergency Appeal.

March 2022

£123,000 towards the British Red Cross’s Syria & Turkey Earthquake Appeal

February 2023

Ukraine crisis support

KPMG was part of a response to the Ukrainian crisis in Scotland, alongside other partners, working with the City of Edinburgh Council. They needed support to help them work through some of the challenges they would face with an increased number of refugees arriving into Edinburgh.

Drawing on the experience of the team who had supported the Scottish Government through the COVID-19 pandemic, we were able to help the Council manage a complex situation and tackle uncertainty.

We focussed on the refugees arriving, keeping in mind their journey so far, working through various scenarios so we could test, challenge and improve their experience. By mobilising and bringing together the various stakeholders involved, we helped identify short and longer-term actions that the teams running the services in Edinburgh were able to implement.

“The whole team gained a huge amount of satisfaction for the small part they played in this hugely important response.”

David Grimson / Director, KPMG in the UK

KPMG Foundation

The KPMG Foundation works with others to improve the lives of the most vulnerable children and young people in the UK, so they are safe, healthy, happy and learning.

The KPMG Foundation, created in 2000, is an independent charity supported by KPMG. It shares a passion for promoting social mobility and achieving long-term change, wherever possible.

The Foundation makes grants to selected partners to improve the life chances of some of the UK’s most vulnerable children and young people. Current priorities are care experienced children, and the early years.

The charity invests in:

new ideas or organisations: START UP
work with emerging evidence, to help sustain or scale: STEP UP
collaborations for influencing policy and systems change: STEP TOGETHER
filling gaps in knowledge, where findings can be put into practice: ACTIONABLE RESEARCH

The charity’s trustees make decisions about where the Foundation can add most value, drawing on their personal and professional experience in KPMG, in academia and from working with communities, families, children and young people.

Find out more about KPMG Foundation

Helping children in care achieve a better outcome

The recent Independent Review of Children’s Social Care¹ stated that in ten years, without dramatic reform, outcomes for too many children and families will remain stubbornly poor. There are nearly 100,000 children in a flawed care system, costing over £15bn per year.

The KPMG Foundation is supporting a variety of work to help children in care achieve better outcomes as well as investigating whether there is anything it can do to prevent children from entering the care system in the first place.

The Fostering Network recently published timely research into the retention and recruitment of foster carers in England. It looked at how to achieve a more diverse and stable foster care workforce in England, supported by the KPMG Foundation and conducted by the Centre for Evidence and Implementation (CEI).

As well as supporting a number of initiatives to improve fostering, we are also working to raise the status of kinship care, where a child lives with a relative or friend. Supporting the adults who provide a stable, loving home is a vital route to ensuring children are safer, healthier, happier and learning.

Ensuring sufficient numbers of skilled and knowledgeable foster carers is one of the biggest challenges currently facing the fostering sector. This research explores what works to retain foster carers – ultimately so we are able to meet all the needs of children in care, both now and in the future.

Read the summary report here.

We helped amplify the findings of this research, and the importance of fostering, at an event earlier this year, alongside the John Lewis Partnership.

The Foundation was delighted to work with the KPMG Family Network and the Corporate Responsibility Team, to help make KPMG a Fostering Friendly Employer.

¹⁾ childrenssocialcare.independent-review.uk

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