Accenture backs people and tech to serve communities in need

BCA’s Biggies Awards finalist: Accenture increased its volunteer effort to assist communities hit hard by bushfires and the pandemic.

Accenture Australia and New Zealand chairman Bob Easton.

The Business Council of Australia’s Biggies Awards finalist: Accenture increased its volunteer effort to assist communities hit hard by bushfires and the pandemic.

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From extra volunteering to the development of a new food delivery model, consulting firm Accenture reached out beyond its client base to assist local communities hard hit by wild bushfires and the COVID pandemic.

The firm helped call centres and banking services to continue through the crises, while also offering staff more opportunities to volunteer during their regular working hours.

“We see responsible business in three dimensions: being a responsible business ourselves, being responsible citizens and being responsible with our clients,” Accenture Australia and New Zealand chairman and senior managing director Bob Easton says.

“In response to the events of this extraordinary year, we have adapted and innovated to keep our communities running.”

Accenture focused on how it could play a positive role to enable staff to give back to their communities in 2020, as Australians found their daily lives restricted by the spread of COVID-19 only months after some towns and villages had been ravaged by bushfires.

Volunteering leave was expanded from one to five days for any employees who supported the bushfires or the pandemic response. The firm also provided unlimited paid emergency services leave. A total of 14,438 volunteering hours and 9133 hours of pro bono work was delivered over the year.

“We recognised pretty early on for both the bushfires and the COVID-19 pandemic that the majority of volunteering was done face-to-face,” Easton says.

“We feared people would stop volunteering because they were isolated at home. We wanted to give them every incentive to keep doing it. Employees should be able to continue helping their community without worrying about the security of their jobs.”

Accenture also raised $180,000 to support the bushfires, after it increased its donation matching to 100 per cent for bushfire and COVID-19 related causes. In May 2020, in response to the impact COVID-19 was having on the company’s not-for-profit partners, Accenture launched its Social Innovation Challenge to develop solutions to rebuild livelihoods for vulnerable people, support virtual learning and assist with digitisation.

It helped the Australian Business and Community Network (ABCN) digitise its programs to allow online delivery of material to students around the country. It also donated 140 laptops to ensure students from under-served communities were not disadvantaged by the digital divide.

“We were delighted with the showcase and the team has been incredible,” says Amy Weaver, manager of digital projects at ABCN. “We have been extremely lucky to have this support.”

The team at Accenture also helped not-for-profit Eat Up — which provides lunches for vulnerable children in the community — to reinvent its delivery model; during lockdowns they delivered food to homes, not schools.

By using a data dashboard developed by Accenture, the Eat Up team can calculate, optimise and communicate the social return on investment. In turn, they can collect data and insights to improve the effectiveness of their programs. “The amount of work (Accenture) has put in is quite astonishing,” Eat Up chief executive Lyndon Galea says.

Accenture’s Social Innovation Challenge enabled its staff to collaborate with eight non-profit partners and design new technology solutions to help communities deal with the challenges of the pandemic.

Initiatives focused on rebuilding livelihoods for disadvantaged or vulnerable people; virtual learning; virtual program delivery; innovative employment pathways and innovative fundraising methods. Eighteen ideas were submitted by Accenture staff during the challenge, with six finalists presenting to a “dragon’s den” for pro-bono funding to take their projects to the next phase.

Accenture employs more than 4500 people in Australia.