In Good Company: Deloitte

March 2008

Deloitte has launched a major, multi-million dollar pro bono program designed to transform the way the organization supports charitable organizations and strengthens the nonprofit sector.

The new program establishes a formal budget to support up to $50 million in outcomes-focused pro bono engagements to eligible nonprofit organizations over the next three years. Deloitte will be particularly focused on helping nonprofits deal with the business and operational issues that challenge their capacity to address social problems.

"As part of a major refocusing of Deloitte's community involvement strategy, we have fundamentally changed the way we approach pro bono service in order to bring the full strength of our organization to bear for nonprofits," said Barry Salzberg, CEO of Deloitte LLP. "With the same level of commitment and sophistication that we approach our commercial client engagements, Deloitte is now positioned to drive high-impact results for our pro bono clients."

The new pro bono program is the embodiment of Deloitte's strategic approach to community involvement, which focuses on mobilizing the organization's intellectual capital to strengthen the nonprofit sector.

Deloitte has a long tradition of encouraging its employees to contribute their business knowledge and experience to help nonprofits deal with strategic, operational and financial business challenges. For the last eight years Deloitte has sponsored an annual Impact Day, a one day example of its year-round commitment to volunteerism. In 2007 Deloitte employees participated in more than 500 projects in more than 70 different communities. Some of these were one-day projects, while many others were kick-offs or continuations of significantly longer-term endeavors.

Though nonprofits are often sophisticated in delivering on their social missions, they frequently struggle with strategic, operational and financial challenges. According to the results of the 2006 Deloitte / Points of Light Volunteer IMPACT Study, 77 percent of nonprofit leaders believe that skilled volunteers could significantly improve their organization's business practices, but only 12 percent align volunteer assignments with workplace skills.

"Nonprofits must function as highly effective organizations in order to achieve their social missions, yet most nonprofits struggle with weak operational capacity and lack of access to the capital necessary to build it," said Evan Hochberg, National Director of Community Involvement, Deloitte Services LP. "Through our new pro bono program, Deloitte is responding to that need and delivering world-class counsel and services to build critical operating capacity for the nonprofit organizations with whom we work."

As an example, Deloitte is engaged in a pro bono project with College Summit, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to seeing that all college-ready students, regardless of socio-economic background, go to college. A team of Deloitte consultants worked to develop a reporting warehouse to help College Summit more efficiently measure and analyze which programs and methods are most effective in encouraging students to go to college. As a result of the reporting warehouse, reports that previously took 15 hours to complete, now only take 2.5 hours, which allows College Summit employees to spend more time conducting the critical analysis that will ultimately get more low-income students into college.

For more information about Deloitte's pro bono program, visit www.deloitte.com.

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