Objective

At DBS, we recognise that our license to operate comes from civil society and companies have a significant role to play in addressing society’s challenges. DBS' employee volunteer movement, People of Purpose (POP), brings our values to life, to create impact beyond banking by engaging employees to volunteer time and skills and contribute meaningfully to our communities.

We work with key partners in our 6 core markets across APAC (SG, CN, HK, ID, IN, TW) to drive initiatives focused on the themes supported by the DBS Foundation, which are fostering inclusion, providing daily needs and supporting businesses for impact. Our programmes also center around the key focus of elderly, education, and environment.

In a post-pandemic world, we saw communities face disrupted livelihoods and rising social inequity, highlighting the need to scale efforts in our key focus areas. Since 2022, we rallied our employees to focus on:

• Developing localised initiatives
• Dialling up skills-based volunteering

We also encouraged volunteerism by enhancing the volunteer journey for employees. Through the PoP volunteer movement, we saw employees coming together to work towards a common goal of making their world a better one.

Strategy

We believe companies like ours play a crucial role in addressing societal and sustainability challenges. Collective effort across sectors, including our employees and communities, is essential. Our PoP volunteering in key markets focuses on elderly care, education, environment, inclusion, and daily needs. Through 2050 events run in 2023, we engaged our employees and leveraged their time and skills to make meaningful contributions. As needs vary across different markets, we worked closely with likeminded partners in local communities to identify the gaps to address. Key initiatives in some of our core markets include:

1. Singapore

• Partnering social service agency, Lions Befrienders, and Singapore’s Ministry of Culture, Community & Youth, DBS curated and focused on anti-scam education for seniors as scams have become more prevalent and complex in recent years. These workshops were coupled with sponsored grocery shopping trips, where the seniors get to practice using cashless payments to make their purchases.
• This initiative also helped alleviate the pressure from rising inflation with >3,000 volunteers matched with >3,000 seniors through >100 sessions.

2. Hong Kong

• Collaborating with Share for Good, Adobe and New World Development, DBS launched the Next-Gen AI-Imagenation to support underprivileged secondary school students.
• >100 DBS volunteers installed essential software and guided 200 students on the use of Generative AI and Adobe Firefly software on their received laptops.

3. Taiwan

• Partnering HuaShan Social Welfare Foundation, DBS volunteers made home visits, meal deliveries and befriended vulnerable seniors. During special festivals and holidays, our volunteers also crafted thoughtful gifts for the elderly.
• >360 DBS volunteers supported over 1,000 seniors with plans to expand to other parts of Taiwan.

4. Indonesia

• In partnership with Food Cycle, Surplus Foundation and Wonder Food Indonesia, our DBS Indonesia employees conducted food drives for the elderly and children to promote #MakanTanpaSisa and highlight the importance of reducing food waste.
• >500 DBS volunteers participated in food drives which reached over 700 beneficiaries

We continue to focus on fostering a culture of giving back, engaging and inspiring our employees in meaningful ways, and by making their volunteering journey seamless and fruitful through:

1. Inaugural PoP Awards 2023

• These awards were launched to celebrate and recognise dedicated DBS employees and their teams who have gone above and beyond to make a difference and create community impact.

2. Enhancing volunteering journey

• We invested in enhancements to PoP Connect - our central digital volunteering platform where volunteering programmes are listed for employees to search and sign up for the ones that resonate most with them, making volunteering simple, seamless and accessible.

3. Inspiring through storytelling

• Taking on a more focused storytelling approach, we leveraged different channels to share stories of impact. E.g. our new content series “After Hours” showcases community stories on our social media platforms. In-depth stories of our volunteers were also spotlighted on our intranet blog, Life@DBS.
• These stories showcase the difference made in the lives of the community, spotlight and celebrate our employees’ contributions, inspiring others to join the journey.

Results

Without the commitment and dedication of our employee volunteers, we will not be able to collectively achieve the following in 2023:

• >200,000 volunteering hours (up 43% yoy), impacting the lives of >180,000 beneficiaries
• >24,000 unique volunteers participated in PoP engagements
• Launched the inaugural PoP Awards to recognise and celebrate volunteers who have gone above and beyond to make a difference
• Enhanced POP Connect to streamline volunteering engagement, saw >2,050 volunteer programmes organised with local partners and listed on PoP Connect, and a 46% increase in the number of users.

In August 2023, we intensified our commitment to the community, setting aside SGD 1 billion over the next 10 years to improve the lives and livelihoods of the low-income and underprivileged. This is coupled with our commitment to contribute 1.5 million hours of employee volunteering, in tandem with our financial contributions.

As testament to our efforts, we received recognition for our employee volunteering engagements, e.g.

• Euromoney Awards for Excellence – Best Bank for Corporate Responsibility
  • The first Singapore bank to receive this award since the category’s inception in 2014, acknowledging DBS’ efforts to create impact in the community.
• ASEAN Leadership Awards on Rural Development and Poverty Eradication (Private Sector)
  • The Award recognises outstanding efforts of civil society organisations and private sector in promoting inclusive and sustainable rural development in ASEAN.
• Steward Leadership 25
  • The shortlisted 25 projects demonstrated resolute action to drive profitable growth by addressing the social and environmental challenges that threaten humanity.

Media