Deloitte celebrates its commitment to community with its unique IMPACT Day programme

Deloitte celebrates its commitment to community with its unique IMPACT Day programme

• Touched more than 250,000 lives through one of the significant initiatives undertaken by Deloitte as part of its community involvement strategy to create positive, sustainable change in the community
• Over 21,000 employees participated in 70 plus projects, across 8 cities, in more than 400 locations
• More than 60% of the projects focused on causes critical to the country’s economy - Education and Employability

Mumbai, 29 November 2013: Deloitte, a global professional services organization, today celebrated the 11^th annual edition of its unique, employee-driven community service programme – the IMPACT Day. A reinforcement of Deloitte’s distinctive approach to community involvement, IMPACT Day represents the culmination of the organization’s year-round strategic community involvement initiatives, and sees the entire Deloitte team in India invest an entire work-day celebrating special activities on their community projects.

Deloitte believes that being one of the leading global professional services providers brings both opportunity and responsibility, and believes in applying its skills and resources where it can make the greatest impact. This belief is translated into actions towards creating meaningful change by all its professionals, who share the organization’s value that ‘both the individuals and the organization must act as responsible business citizens and contribute to the communities in which they live and work.’ Accordingly, the community involvement initiatives of Deloitte have a strong emphasis on advancing economic prosperity and social wellbeing in the community by promoting environmental sustainability, helping young people gain access to education and employability skills, and supporting humanitarian progress. The other distinctive features of Deloitte’s commitment to community include: collaboration with several nonprofit organizations to make the change sustainable and broad-based, skills-based volunteerism for greater impact, and a multi-pronged approach for continuous involvement.

Bringing in the same approach to its community involvement initiatives in India, Deloitte has been committed to creating change through causes that have a long-term impact on the Indian society and economy through diverse programmes. Several projects are year-round planned efforts by the employees, and IMPACT Day is a celebration of all such efforts, as well as of specific shorter duration ones focused on creating a tangible difference across several locations.

This year, over 21,000 Deloitte employees participated in volunteering work for community service across more than 400 locations, in 8 cities, touching more than 250,000 lives. Working in over 70 projects across the country, Deloitte professionals, irrespective of their departments at work, came together to dedicate their working hours, providing skills-based volunteering to build competencies and soft skills, to augment infrastructure and much more. More than 60% of the projects were centered on the causes of Education and Employability, critical to the country’s economy.

Speaking on the occasion, Hari Kumar, Principal, Deloitte LLP, said: “This is a day of pride for us. Commitment to Community is integral to “who we are” as an organization; and to witness our professionals living this value by investing their efforts in causes like educating the youth of this country, especially the students from underprivileged sections, is a matter of pride. Our year-round community involvement initiatives, as well as IMPACT Day, through the years, have enabled our professionals to become complete individuals. I firmly believe community service is an essential part of their growth as stronger, compassionate leaders.”

“The future of the country will be defined in great measure by how strong and inclusive the workforce of tomorrow is going to be. So this year our efforts on IMPACT Day are majorly focused on Education and Employability projects. Many of our year-round initiatives are focused on improving the quality of education for a number of young people in the cities where we live and work. Through these initiatives, Deloitte professionals have helped several underprivileged children and youth learn vocational skills and improve their soft skills, thus making them employable. We also have initiatives that focus on building capabilities of the nonprofit organizations to operate effectively and increase their reach and impact,” said P. Thiruvengadam, Senior Director, Deloitte in India.

It is noteworthy to mention that Deloitte’s IMPACT Day has been recognized consecutively for seven times in the Limca Book of records for the highest number of community service hours by a corporate in India on a single day.