Community engagement

At PwC, our purpose is to build trust in society and solve important problems. As a firm, we believe in fulfilling our corporate responsibilities and in giving back to the society by helping the community and environment at large. This is part and parcel of our endeavour to build trust in society in a broader sense. Looking after the communities and environments in which we work in isn’t just about good manners, it’s good business. We are committed to making a positive, lasting impact in our communities by sharing our time, knowledge, resources, as well as inspiring and harnessing the dedication and capabilities of our people.

As part of PwC Singapore’s commitment to corporate responsibility and continuous upskilling, our New world. New skills. (NWNS) initiative aims to equip our people with advanced knowledge and skills to enable them to stay abreast of the evolving business world, digital technology and new ways of working. We are committed to bridging the digital divide so that everyone has an equal opportunity to live, learn, work and make their contributions to the workforce needs of the future. Our leaders also lead by example by sitting on non-profit boards, tapping on their experiences and expertise to bring the social sector to greater heights, and supporting them in achieving the social and organisation goals.

Find out more about our NWNS initiatives in Singapore and globally.

Globally across our network, we are investing in the future and growth of 15 million people, NGOs and social & micro enterprises to help them maximise their potential by 2022. The focus of our community impact programmes is therefore focussed around these three themes.

Skills and education

Jobs are changing. And education needs to change too. From financial literacy, to technology skills and mentoring, we’re helping people to thrive by preparing them for the jobs of the future.

Building the capacity of NGOs

NGOs are trusted to deliver support when and where society needs it most. Working alongside NGOs, we’re helping to build a stronger, more transparent sector.

Supporting social and micro enterprises

Social & micro enterprises have the ability to transform markets. We’re helping to empower entrepreneurs to be the disruptors of tomorrow. And we’re sharing our expertise to help them scale for even more impact.

Every year, we host and partake in a variety of firmwide volunteer initiatives to give back to our community. The programmes highlighted below are our key volunteering initiatives.

Skills-based volunteering

Here, we focus our efforts on sharing our work-related skills and experience to maximise the potential of individuals through upskilling of individuals and organisations in the social sector, including social enterprises and not-for-profit organisations.

Through our community investments, we share our greatest asset – the skills, knowledge, talent and passion of our people – to help create communities where people and business can thrive.

Strategy workshops with Conjunct Consulting

Our volunteers have facilitated and co-led many strategy workshops with Conjunct Consulting to upskill students and charity leaders on various topics, such as solutioning and client relationship management through roleplay. Our long term collaboration with the organisation has seen many of our client-facing teams sharing their experiences and knowledge to strengthen the professional skills of various communities.

SIF Young Social Entrepreneurs Programme

The Singapore International Foundation (SIF) runs the Young Social Entrepreneurs (YSE) programme that inspires, equips and enables youths from different nationalities to build capacity and eventually launch their social enterprises. Every year, PwC Singapore volunteers sign up as reviewers and mentors to help build the capacity of social enterprises across the Asia Pacific region.

New world. New skills.

In FY20, the focus on New world. New skills. and programmes with direct beneficiary reach and impact drove a 20-fold increase in the number of beneficiaries reached by our programmes, and a 518% increase in contribution to our global corporate responsibility reach ambition.

Moving forward, skills-based volunteering will continue to be the core of our community engagement efforts.

Digital upskilling programme with HCSA Highpoint

In support of the PwC Singapore Foundation’s commitment to education and New world. New skills., our people contributed 150 hours over a period of six months in 2022 to develop content and upskill ex-offenders digitally. Monthly workshops were organised to cover various digital topics identified by the social organisations and curated based on their needs. This bespoke programme has since upskilled more than 30 elderly ex-offenders and enabled HCSA to receive external investment which is now being used to build an IT lab on their premise.

General volunteering

Giving Week

2020 marked the inaugural of our annual campaign, Giving Week, where our people contributed their skills, time and money towards helping the community. Throughout the week, we partook in various initiatives such as co-organising the Big 4 Christmas Bazaar with EY, KPMG and Deloitte where we raised funds for social organisations, and packed food donations with The Food Bank Singapore and Food from the Heart. We also helped to build capability for social sector organisations through advisory clinics and raised funds for Myanmar.

International services programme and hiking, bowling, arts and dancing sessions with YMCA of Singapore

PwC Singapore works closely with YMCA of Singapore on various general volunteering programmes such as arts, dancing, swimming, hiking and bowling classes. We also participate in skills based volunteering through the YMCA International Services programme. In 2019, our volunteers went to Myanmar, Vietnam and Nepal on educational and infrastructural projects. While immersing themselves and learning about local cultures, our people taught the children English and raised funds to upgrade their school’s infrastructure and provide an improved learning environment. With the days of tight COVID-19 restrictions behind us, we hope to bring this project back to life in 2023, with a new focus on environmental sustainability and education.

We are also excited to expand our approach to disability inclusion internally and externally from 2023. We are collaborating with several social organisations to understand what roles PwC Singapore can play to support their causes, and have recently taken the Enabling Employment Pledge.

Food packing with Food from the Heart

Since 2021, we have worked together with Food from the Heart on a monthly food packing programme and contributed strategic financial donations through the PwC Singapore Foundation. We hope to reinforce our firm’s continued commitment in our support for the elderly and low income families in Singapore.