HSBC Private Bank -

• setting up an employee engagement programme
• researching and developing a new philanthropy programme for private bank clients

A case history

When Mark McCombe took over as CEO in January 2006, he wanted charity involvement that would engage the bank’s staff in active volunteering for a specific charity, to build morale and a sense of purpose as much as raise money for a good cause. 

There were a few obstacles to overcome, but nothing major.  To work, staff had to be fully behind the idea and involved in selecting the charity. Ideally it should be a small/medium sized organisation where the money raised would make a real difference, but not so small that the volunteering would be very limited.  The charity must be financially sound and well-managed. And the staff (including the senior management) needed to be persuaded to commit to one cause for at least 2 years.

The process: management support – staff involvement – strategy – selection – launch.

Management support

1. To get both direction and commitment at a senior level, all the bank’s directors were interviewed individually. Their interests, current charity involvement, volunteering activities etc were established.

Staff involvement

2. With the full support of the Board to establish a focused charity policy, a staff charity committee was formed with members from each operating division: 12 in all.  At this stage there were more volunteers than could be handled, so informal selection took place.

Strategy

3. The More You Give made suggestions for the initial Committee agendas and helped chair weekly meetings to get focus and concensus on a whole range of issues including the charitable areas they might support – which ranged at the outset from Culture and the Arts to Environment, Children and Young People and Medical Research.

4. The charitable area was agreed – vulnerable 11 – 16 year olds, and other criteria decided.  A partnership of two years, the fundraising target and mechanisms for delivering it. The policy from the management for time to volunteer (2 paid days a year) and the types of volunteering that would be encouraged, from lending managerial expertise in IT, accounts and HR to offering young people financial education and work experience.

Selection

5. With the outline strategy agreed the Committee prepared a briefing document for the charities. At the same time the More You Give searched out a long-list, whittled down with the Committee to a short list for further investigation.   Disadvantaged children is one of the largest charitable sectors in the UK, so in addition to desk research The More You Give Support Network of philanthropists, grant makers and sector experts were contacted for their contribution before any contact was made with the charities on the short-list.

6. The original selection of 30 charities had been reduced to 5 invited to pitch.  The More You Give was available to support them and a level playing field approach was used: 20 minutes for the presentation and 20 minutes for questions. After the pitch half day visits were arranged with 2 charities who had the opportunity to show members of the Committee their work.

7. With further input from the visits, Greenhouse Schools Project won the committee vote.

Launch

8. Selling the charity partnership to all the employees was hugely important. The partnership was announced on the HSBC Private Bank intranet by Mark McCombe. Greenhouse were invited to present to the main board and senior heads of department and this was a great success. There were two launch parties at the private bank’s HQ in St James, with drinks, canapés, a performance of street dance from some of the young people at Greenhouse, with speeches from Mark Mc Combe, the Founder and CEO of Greenhouse and some of their staff.

Result

‘Our partnership with Greenhouse has been inspirational and motivational for all our staff and for the people at Greenhouse too. Raising £500,000 in 3 years is incredible and surpasses all our expectations from the start when we began choosing a charity and developed a partnership plan. We’ve also enjoyed working closely with the staff and the children at Greenhouse to try and help the charity and the young people in as many different ways as we can.’ Sarah Greer – HSBC Private Bank