Deloitte's New Innovative Pro Bono Program

Deloitte just announced a new way to help society. Its vision is laudable - " transform the way the organization supports charitable organizations and strengthens the nonprofit sector". This emulates other result-oriented charitable organizations such as the Gates Foundation, where charitable contributions are made with clear line of sight to outcomes and return on initial investment.

Deloitte's new program establishes a formal budget, policies and procedures for a $50 million in outcomes-focused pro bono engagements, to provide in-kind professional services to eligible nonprofit organizations, over the next three years. Deloitte will help nonprofits deal with business and operational issues they face while meeting their missions.

Deloitte appears to bringing business consulting and for-profits focus to social organizations, and highlights that nonprofits face strategic, operational and financial challenges, which can be solved through known consulting techniques.

Deloitte cites an example where its volunteers helped College Summit (a national nonprofit organization dedicated to seeing that all college-ready students, regardless of socio-economic background, go to college) significantly cut the time to generate reports, enabling it to focus better on its original purposes.

“Nonprofits must function as highly effective organizations in order to achieve their social missions, yet most nonprofits struggle with weak operational capacity and lack of access to the capital necessary to build it,” said Evan Hochberg, National Director of Community Involvement, Deloitte Services LP. “Through our new pro bono program, Deloitte is responding to that need and delivering world-class counsel and services to build critical operating capacity for the nonprofit organizations with whom we work.”

This is entirely new in the Big Four world, typically firms would encourage volunteer days or fund United Way charitites or specific projects, and not really monitor the end results of their efforts. Deloitte seems to be saying something different, they will help nonprofits in a systematic way, apply proven consulting mechanims, institute the program and see the result. The budgeting of $50 million gives proof to the thought behind this initiative. Deloitte's probono efforts may become more selective but hopefully produce real societal results.

We applaud this effort for it shows community development focus of a Big Four firm, combined with its core strenghts of enabling clients to realize real results. And we would be delighted to see success stories on Deloitte's website.

Finally, we will see if other Big4 firms follow's Deloitte's lead.



For more info, see www.deloitte.com/us/probono.

And read the entire press release at
http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/press_release/0,1014,sid%253D2283%2526cid%253D191773,00.html