Volunteering - Corporate Responsibility

Volunteering

ANZ Staff Volunteers: Making a Difference In the Community

ANZ and its people have a proud commitment to community involvement. We offer all ANZ staff at least one day's paid volunteer leave per year to make a difference in their communities. Since 2005, we have contributed more than 200,000 volunteer hours to a wide range of initiatives, projects and not-for-profit organisations.

How It Works

ANZ offers its employees in Australia, New Zealand and India at least one day of paid leave per year to undertake volunteer services in their community. Staff involved in more long-term community projects can apply for up to 12 months of Community Service Leave.

Our staff volunteer for a variety of activities. We've built homes for people in need, created and restored community facilities, supported local schools, fought fires, planted trees, and much more. While staff can use volunteer leave to contribute to any approved community activity, there are several volunteer programs ANZ actively supports. Here are some examples:

ANZ staff have been involved in developing robust technology systems for community organisations to streamline capacity and create efficiencies.
Staff in Bangalore have provided a helping hand to build old age home called 'Vishranthi'. This included laying the foundation for the prayer hall building, creating a self sufficient kitchen garden and planting flower beds.
More than 200 staff have been involved in building new houses for families in need through Habitat for Humanity.

Case Study: Reading for Life
Reading for Life is a volunteer community reading program to help children having difficulty reading at primary school. It is designed to support teachers and give one-to-one assistance to children who are struggling to read in a classroom environment and is run by Learning Links. Reading for Life complements ANZ's financial literacy work by helping children who will benefit from some extra reading support engaged with their education. ANZ Volunteers have found the Reading for Life experience very rewarding: 'Very enjoyable to spend time with a child that needed some assistance and the feeling that I was able to help this child in some small way' 'It was a wonderful experience to achieve such tangible results with my 'buddy' child. I learnt a lot about how to connect with someone who was very shy, and I took a lot of positive things out of the experience'.

Case Study: Reading for Life

Reading for Life is a volunteer community reading program to help children having difficulty reading at primary school. It is designed to support teachers and give one-to-one assistance to children who are struggling to read in a classroom environment and is run by Learning Links.

Reading for Life complements ANZ's financial literacy work by helping children who will benefit from some extra reading support engaged with their education.

ANZ Volunteers have found the Reading for Life experience very rewarding:

'Very enjoyable to spend time with a child that needed some assistance and the feeling that I was able to help this child in some small way'

'It was a wonderful experience to achieve such tangible results with my 'buddy' child. I learnt a lot about how to connect with someone who was very shy, and I took a lot of positive things out of the experience'.

Case study: Taking the team to extremes
Two New Zealand team members used their volunteer leave to work with a local not-for-profit organisation who aims to equip the region's youth with life skills for the future. Leanne Hardy, Branch Manager, Upper Hutt, Wellington and a colleague Jill, helped 'Team Xtreme' to look for new ways to fundraise, identify sponsorship opportunities and improve their financial management. According to Leanne: "After watching one of Team Xtreme's sessions with the kids, then helping them to come up with some new and creative ideas to support their cause during Volunteer week I was left with a sense that I had really helped them achieve some goals during my volunteer hours, and that they really appreciated the work ANZ does." Team Xtreme helps young people to build the life skills necessary to help them make good decisions for themselves and their future. The group is run by volunteers, mostly less than 25 years of age. Leanne and Jill were able to use their skills and personal strengths to provide Team Xtreme with new ideas and a better foundation to grow their services and activities. This included generating ideas for fundraising, maximising their available funds and looking at grant opportunities. This led to a review of their incidentals and a better awareness of more cost effective ways to run the organisation.

Case study: Taking the team to extremes

Two New Zealand team members used their volunteer leave to work with a local not-for-profit organisation who aims to equip the region's youth with life skills for the future.

Leanne Hardy, Branch Manager, Upper Hutt, Wellington and a colleague Jill, helped 'Team Xtreme' to look for new ways to fundraise, identify sponsorship opportunities and improve their financial management.

According to Leanne: "After watching one of Team Xtreme's sessions with the kids, then helping them to come up with some new and creative ideas to support their cause during Volunteer week I was left with a sense that I had really helped them achieve some goals during my volunteer hours, and that they really appreciated the work ANZ does."

Team Xtreme helps young people to build the life skills necessary to help them make good decisions for themselves and their future. The group is run by volunteers, mostly less than 25 years of age.

Leanne and Jill were able to use their skills and personal strengths to provide Team Xtreme with new ideas and a better foundation to grow their services and activities. This included generating ideas for fundraising, maximising their available funds and looking at grant opportunities. This led to a review of their incidentals and a better awareness of more cost effective ways to run the organisation.

Progress in 2008

Across the Group we achieved our goal for 2008 which was to achieve 70,000 hours of volunteering in the communities in which we work. This included 47,862 hours in Australia, 24,438 hours in New Zealand and 7,320 hours in other countries.

2008 Volunteering	Hours	Number of staff	Value
Australian staff	47,862	7,227	$2,148,200
New Zealand	24,438	3,258	$728,016
Asia Pacific (inc. India)	7,124	891	$71,240
Other	196	43	$6,272
Total	79,620	11,419	$3,007,728

Our volunteering program has also experienced increased hours each year.

Total Volunteering Hours

The future

ANZ's will continue to enable staff in all our regions to invest time and expertise in worthwhile community initiatives. By doing this we can assist in building the capacity of many charitable organisations, enabling them to have a significant impact in the community while at the same time growing the engagement and competency of our own staff.