Giving and volunteering | RBS

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Giving and volunteering

Our recorded community investment for 2019 was £36.3 million (UK only £34.8 million). This reflects our investment in community programmes and our wider support to society through our business activities and is measured using the London Benchmarking Group standard.

£12.9 million of this community investment is the result of our commitment to supporting charities and not-for-profit organisations through the provision of free and reduced-fee banking.

Many of our employees see helping the local community as part of their day job, and we encourage them to take part in giving and volunteering programmes. In 2019, we asked them to support us in reaching our bank-wide community targets:


2019 Community Outcomes

  • Through the generosity of our employees, charities received £4,340,537.
  • Our employees completed over 90,000 hours of volunteering during business time.


We know that many colleagues want to support good causes of their own choosing. In 2019:

  • Every member of staff was entitled to a minimum of three days volunteering to help their local community.
  • Our colleagues spent 36,078 hours with our partner of 12 years, The Conservation Volunteers, creating healthier and happier communities by transforming green spaces and planting trees across the UK.
  • We continued our Community Cashback programme in which the bank recognises employee fundraising and volunteering. 3,556 employees claimed a cashback award in 2019 resulting in £889,000 being received by charities.
  • We continued to promote payroll giving; 6,300 employees in the UK, Ireland and India donated £1,887,855 to charities. We received the Gold Quality Mark for the UK scheme.

Customer giving

We play an important role in helping our customers give to good causes.
 

  • With our Reward Accounts, customers can donate their Rewards to ten different charities: Alzheimer’s Society, Barnardo’s, British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Macmillan, NSPCC, The Prince’s Trust, RNIB, The Disasters Emergency Committee and Sport Relief. In 2019, we facilitated donations of £266,590 through the Reward Account.

  • We are a founding partner of #Giving Tuesday UK, which is part of an international social media campaign which runs the Tuesday after Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It aims to encourage individuals, businesses and charities to promote charitable giving on this one day. For #GivingTuesday 2019, we donated £250,000 to the good causes which our employees and customers support, and encouraged them to join this global day of giving.

  • We remained the only bank to offer ATM giving to anyone with a LINK ATM card. A total of 26 charities benefit from this scheme, including RNIB, Oxfam, RSPCA and Cancer Research UK. In 2019, £118,606 was donated through the scheme.

Responding in a crisis

We are committed to supporting major appeals, including responding compassionately in times of emergency and crisis. In 2019, we supported the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) Cyclone Idai Appeal raising over £111,000 through our employees and customers.

Community policy

RBS is committed to supporting our communities through the delivery of bank-wide strategic programmes, making donations for specific charitable purposes and encouraging our employees to get involved with the community through giving, fundraising and volunteering.

RBS India Foundation

We consider the long-term impacts of our decisions and actions and are proud of the way our enterprise and financial education programmes continue to make a positive difference to our customers and communities. We also remain committed to contributing towards the global priorities of climate change and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.


RBS Foundation India plays a significant role in supporting this commitment. By enhancing capacities in 126,500 of the most vulnerable households and improving over 130,000 hectares of land in some of India’s most critical ecosystems, the Foundation continues to deliver strongly to address climate change issues and contribute to the SDGs in alignment with India’s national priorities.
 

We’re now NatWest Group

Come and visit us for all our latest news, insights and everything NatWest Group.

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