Over the course of the year, 3,675 or 18% of Australian staff contributed more than 24,000 hours as part of ANZ’s Volunteers program, which provides employees with eight hours leave each year to complete volunteering activities of their choice. ANZ’s program is among the leaders globally – the average corporate volunteering participation rate is 8.5%, according to figures based on volunteering participation rates from members of the London Benchmarking Group for corporate community investment programs.
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- The Cancer Council of Australia
- Habitat for Humanity Australia
- Foodbank
- Starlight Foundation
- Diabetes Australia Research Trust
- The Benevolent Society
- The Smith Family
- Alzheimer’s Australia
- World Vision
- National Heart Foundation
- Brotherhood of St Laurence
- CanTeen
- RSPCA
- Beyond Blue
- Reconciliation Australia
- Greening Australia
- Kids Help Line
- Berry Street Victoria
- ANZ’s Staff Foundation
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Our people responded to the devastating Tsunami of Boxing Day 2005, in partnership with organisations such as World Vision and the Australian Red Cross, with some 600 staff in Australia alone donating 4,200 volunteer hours to support Tsunami relief efforts.
We also provided the volunteer network to support the inaugural Australian Comic Relief fundraiser for Oxfam Community Aid Abroad.
Throughout the year, 28% of our Australian staff donated money to our 18 community partners through our Community Giving program, where ANZ matches staff contributions dollar-for-dollar up to $1,000 per person. The high participation rate was principally achieved through staff donations to Tsunami relief efforts to support the work of World Vision. Our total contribution via Community Giving was $1.1 million.
This year the ANZ Community Fund contributed $350,000 to support 185 local projects across Australia. This Fund encourages people in our branch network to support grass-roots business and community partnerships. Since 2002 more than $680,000 has been provided to support over 330 projects.
ANZ and the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal (FRRR) promote Seeds of Renewal, a small grants program helping to increase the sustainability of rural communities. In 2005, 93 grants totalling $358,000 were made to small rural communities throughout Australia, supporting projects that are important to the people who live and work in these areas. In many cases our staff also volunteer to support and deliver these projects. ANZ has contributed more than $800,000 over the three years since the program’s inception.
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| With around 200,000 families living permanently in caravan parks and more than 172,000 families on public housing waiting lists, the number of people living in inadequate, unsafe housing is growing every year with the escalating costs of housing nation wide. |
| Our team in ANZ Mortgages has partnered with Habitat for Humanity to build simple, decent, affordable houses for people in need. We use our ANZ Volunteer leave to construct the houses with the families who will eventually call it their home. Recipient families invest 500 hours in the project as part of their agreement with Habitat. |
| The partnership is a natural extension of our team’s focus on putting people into homes and gives us an opportunity to address major social and environmental issues in housing. |
| This year we completed our fourth Habitat home since our partnership began in 2001 and we have now committed to build or renovate three Habitat homes each year. Next on our list are projects in Mooroolbark (Vic), Dandenong South (Vic) and Adelaide (SA). |
We also provide Habitat with management, marketing and communications expertise, drawn from our people within the Mortgages team. Habitat for Humanity is also one of the 18 community partners supported by our Community Giving program.
Habitat families participate in ANZ’s MoneyMinded financial education program to help them build their ‘financial fitness’ at the same time as they’re building their new homes. |
| Without a doubt, the best outcome of all is seeing the tangible human benefits created by our partnership with Habitat, the friendships we build with the families involved and the contribution of our people. |
| For most of our people, working with the families and seeing the children's happy faces when they move into their new homes is the biggest buzz of all. |
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