Deloitte volunteers are helping to change futures

Through our annual volunteering campaign, Futures Month, and our work with partner charities, schools and social impact organisations, our people use their expertise and knowledge to make an impact, while developing their professional skills.

Around 3500 colleagues supported our volunteering programmes in FY22.

Everyone at Deloitte can donate 3.5 hours of their time each month. And by supporting non-profit organisations and initiatives, they can really make a difference to the futures of people across the UK. This is our 5 Million Futures social impact strategy, which is helping individuals get to where they want to be thanks to better access to education and employment. 

In FY22, our colleagues clocked up 31,700 volunteer hours and gave a further 9,700 pro bono hours across 86 projects. Together, they impacted the futures of 345,000 people .

Every May, we run Futures Month, when people can sign up for a two-hour volunteering session. It puts volunteering at Deloitte firmly in the spotlight, and it’s how many get their first exposure to volunteering.

During COVID-19, restrictions meant volunteering went virtual. But this year, normal service resumed, and in-person participation was once again an option, including the always popular after-school debate clubs with social mobility organisation Debate Mate.

We also added new opportunities for 2022: Whale & Dolphin Conservation’s (WDC’s) Urban Beach Clean project and working with the charity Caritas to support refugees and asylum seekers with their English language skills. We also got involved with mentoring conversations with those considering starting up their own businesses.

But the most popular Futures Month initiative was led by our partner Goodera. To support young people with disabilities and their carers, 760 volunteers signed up to record audiobooks, create videos and flashcards. On average five visually impaired people listen to each audiobook, so those hundreds of recordings impact even more individuals’ futures.

In addition to our UK CEO, Richard Houston, and the Deloitte Executive Team, 374 Deloitte volunteers helped students develop their critical thinking and communications skills as part of Debate Mate’s Classroom to Boardroom programme. 

Watch them in action below.

If everyone in the UK picked up five discarded single-use water bottles every week, we could prevent 177,580 tonnes of plastic from entering the oceans¹.

As part of WDC’s Urban Beach Clean project – our first environmentally focused Futures Month activity – 360 colleagues took to the streets of Birmingham, Cardiff, Leeds, Liverpool, London and Reading to clean up litter before it could find its way into the ocean via waterways. Across nine urban beach cleans, our volunteers collected more than 10,000 pieces of rubbish.

While we shine a light on volunteering during Futures Month, it’s a year-round activity at Deloitte. We’ve continued to grow our successful volunteering partnerships with national education charity Governors for Schools and virtual reading scheme TutorMate.

Governors for Schools aims to ensure excellent governance across state-funded schools in England and Wales. The organisation matches and trains Deloitte volunteers to take on school governance roles, with the programme’s skills-based nature serving as a great development opportunity.

So far, 89 volunteers have been placed in schools, with a further 42 in the application process. Placed governors have so far impacted 31,150 children by giving 7,476 hours of their collective time each year generating over £528,000 worth of equivalent financial support to schools during their term of office.

TutorMate, meanwhile, pairs our people with struggling young readers from disadvantaged communities. Volunteers spend 30 minutes a week giving virtual reading support to children aged five to six in Doncaster, Middlesbrough, and London. In 643-plus hours of support, 88 Deloitte volunteers worked with 76 children, who progressed by an average 2.8 reading levels.

Following the success of our volunteering initiatives in FY22, we’re already planning bigger things for the coming year. Our focus will be on supporting strong and sustainable school leadership, digital inclusion and helping under-represented individuals into jobs.

We hope even more of our colleagues will get involved in making a genuine difference to people’s futures.

“It made me feel more motivated by giving something back. I would 100 percent love to do this on a regular basis!”
Deloitte Futures Month volunteer 

“It is great to see such an appetite for skills-based volunteering within Deloitte. We are really looking forward to developing our relationship further and it is exciting to have a relationship plan for the next 12 months already drafted.”
Will Durham
Governors for Schools 

“It’s often the case that students don't have someone at home to give them the crucial information they need to build confidence in finding a job. It is a privilege to be able to assist with this.”
Deloitte Debate Mate volunteer