As one of Canada’s largest corporate donors, RBC has a significant impact on charitable and non-profit organizations and the communities they serve throughout the country – and around the world. RBC also empowers employees who want to make a difference in the places they live and work.
When the bank’s 150-year history of delivering social impact collided with the global pandemic, the outcome was never in doubt. RBC would honour the commitments it had made to its community partners – and go further to enact measures that enabled its 85,000-plus employees globally to continue safely engaging with the issues and causes that matter to them.
Valerie Chort, vice president of corporate citizenship, says the non-profit sector experienced a two-fold blow – decreased donations and unprecedented demand for services. So RBC directed over $10 million to mental health and food security programs. It also reassured more than 900 community partners that their funding was intact and offered the flexibility to use up to 50 per cent of it to cover operating costs, up from its standard 20 per cent cap.
Chort says the move is in the spirit of RBC’s stated Purpose: to help clients thrive and communities prosper. “We know that RBC is part of something larger than itself,” she says. “If our charitable and non-profit partners don’t make it through, our communities don’t make it through.”
At the same time, Chort says, RBC wanted to take a “more than money” approach in response to the pandemic. It also had resources and talented employees to support a wide range of activities.
Take, for example, RBC Race for the Kids, a series of runs supporting children’s charities worldwide. With in-person events impossible in 2020, RBC developed the organizational and technological infrastructure to host its first-ever virtual and global event. It then invited its 36 charity partners on board to take advantage of the platform, to further increase their fundraising capacity at minimal cost.
The result? More than 26,000 participants took part, hailing from over 130 countries – the most locations ever. They raised more than $5 million, bringing the total to over $60 million since RBC Race for Kids began in 2009.
GTA resident Danny Fabbro was among the race participants. Since joining RBC as a branch manager in 2007, he’s also been an active volunteer and event organizer, helping to raise thousands of dollars for Toronto’s LGBTQ+ community.
“I’ve been very blessed,” says Fabbro, who manages the Yonge & Bloor branch. “RBC doesn’t just support my volunteer activities, it encourages them. Making a difference in our communities is embedded in everything we do at RBC.”
So Fabbro was not surprised that instead of cancelling the Race for the Kids, RBC turned it into a virtual event. “The method has changed, the heart has not.”
RBC employees have rallied around their Purpose with initiatives such as the bank’s #PowerOfPurpose campaign, where colleagues recognized peers who went that extra mile to help their clients, communities, and each other for a chance to win $150 in donation credits – which they could then allocate to the charity of their choice. Similarly, RBC committed an additional $2 million so that RBCers like Fabbro could direct a $25 community donation to a cause close to their heart.
According to Chort, mitigating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic has almost become a program unto itself. Still, she says some things at RBC won’t change. “Whether we’re at the response, relief, or recovery stage, we – and our employees – are committed to understanding and supporting the needs of our communities.”
