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• Home  > An active community member  

• An active community member
•  Managing our
  community programme
•  Community investment
•  Global focus
  achievements
•  Local focus
  achievements
•  Impact
•  Case studies section

“Inspire’ is our Leadership Development programme which was designed with the principle of embedding CR activity in our business as usual as a guiding strategy. Delivering leadership development through a programme which includes large community projects has both a significant and lasting impact on the individuals on the programme and the communities in which we have been working.”

Sara Kaye
People Director,
Experian UK and Ireland

Case studies section

Experian has remained committed to giving to the community this year. Despite economic pressures and cost saving activities, the Group gave more this year than in any previous year. The table below gives a full breakdown: the direct funds in cash showed an increase but the startling increase was in people’s time given to volunteering, the hours our employees have given to their communities, both in company time and their own, increased substantially. Our communities also benefited from major donations made through the funds we are dispersing from the share of Experian’s profits put aside for the GUS Charitable Trust in the year of demerger. $423,000 was given to benefit the University of California, Irvine, USA and the Nottingham City Academy in the UK.

There are two distinct elements to our community programme:

• Local community activity in the region or business, usually involving a strong element of employee involvement, whether through fundraising or volunteering.
  
  
• Central community funding, a significant amount of which is focussed on the promotion of a deeper understanding of financial management and encouraging entrepreneurship.

Some of this central funding is allocated to our ‘Big Ideas’ programme to support the development of new products and services with real social or environmental benefits. We have so far supported four Big Ideas including an initiative to make microfinance more efficient and intelligent software to help employers manage their workforce diversity.

Our notable success in volunteering this year can be attributed to the careful selection of community partners and the active promotion of volunteering, partly through leadership development. Employee volunteer hours in the US rose from 8,366 last year to 12,888 this. In the UK the total went from 4,218 to 7,406. In Brazil 1,800 staff volunteered on a single day supporting 61 different social organisations and more than 5,000 people benefited as a result.

Our community work gives rise to multiple benefits. It helps us meet some of our organisational goals for people development and is popular with colleagues. It makes a real difference to the organisations that provide critical services to those who need help in the communities where we work and live and it supports our business objectives since our core theme is the promotion of financial understanding and development of entrepreneurship. This focussed support ensures we are contributing to the long-term financial health of consumers as well as the overall reduction of poverty.

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