Strengthening our communities
Volunteerism and charitable giving at Ernst & Young are connected to each other as well as to our business. As a firm whose business relies on problem-solving and knowledge transfer, our greatest asset is our people’s knowledge and experience. So we focus our community engagement on education and mentoring, because it fits who we are and where we can provide value.
Our approach to community engagement enables our people to apply their workplace skills to create positive change in communities close to home and around the world. We take both a national and local approach to our community engagement, with sponsorships and affiliations that help our people get involved in new experiences and give back where it’s meaningful to them.
Our people serve on not-for-profit boards, support schools and mentor students, work to make inclusiveness in the workplace real, serve high-impact entrepreneurial businesses around the world, and strive to reduce our environmental footprint. When disaster strikes we respond with our intellectual capital as well as with financial generosity to help our people, clients, and affected communities with the process of rebuilding.
We provide tools and programs to help our people use their talents, interests, and enthusiasm in ways that provide professional development opportunities while expanding and deepening our community relationships. An Ernst & Young website called EYVolunteers helps our people to find, organize and communicate community engagement activities; a Community Engagement Network provides resources to help our people learn and develop professionally as they volunteer; and a network of Community Engagement Champions provides leadership for our community engagement across each of our geographic areas.
Our focus on education
Whether supporting local schools through funding or volunteerism, helping minority or disadvantaged students increase their access to higher education, or sponsoring programs that engage kids in the learning process, we focus our
community engagement efforts on education and mentoring. Find out what we’re doing, where we’re leveraging our skills, and what we believe it can mean for society. Read more in our
Community Engagement brochure (pdf, 904K).
Toolkit helps manage aid
Following the 2004 tsunami in Asia, Ernst & Young Indonesia developed the EYe Toolkit to help not-for-profit organizations establish proper systems of accountability and control when managing humanitarian aid. A U.S. version of this resource — adapted to address similar concerns in the wake of other natural disasters, and profiled as a best practice example by the Business Roundtable — provides recommendations for managing budget preparation, inventory management, reporting, and more.
Download an overview (pdf, 752K) or the
EYe Toolkit (pdf, 961K).
Providing support in times of disaster
In response to the series of hurricanes that battered the U.S. in 2005, Ernst & Young helped to organize and deliver pro bono tax services to hundreds of affected individuals, efforts that were recognized in 2006 by an award from the Internal Revenue Service. Our firm was also the inaugural recipient of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Tax Public Service Award in recognition of our help in mobilizing a national response to the regional natural disasters. Additionally, Ernst & Young dedicated people and knowledge to the 2006 Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund, which provided grants to assist victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Lending our skills to deserving entrepreneurs
The Ernst & Young
Corporate Responsibility Fellows Program sponsors high-performing people at Ernst & Young to volunteer their skills and knowledge to help entrepreneurial organizations. Since 2005, ten CR Fellows from the U.S. and Canada have given up their regular duties for three month service sabbaticals in Central and South America.
