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Giving and volunteering

As a responsible business, we are committed to supporting our colleagues and customers give back to help our communities thrive.

2023 Key Stats

Our direct community investment amounted to

£11.1m(*)

compared with £13.6M in 2022.

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Our colleagues gave

£3.8M

through their giving and fundraising

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Our colleagues volunteered over

125,000

worktime hours

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NatWest Group donated over

£3M

To the Disasters Emergency Committee

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(*) Within the scope of EY assurance. Refer to our External assurance webpage for details.

 

Please see our 2023 ESG Disclosures Report for more information.

Supporting our communities through giving

As a responsible business, we are committed to supporting our colleagues and customers give back to help our communities thrive.

Our direct community investment in 2023 amounted to £11.1 million(*) compared with £13.6 million in 2022, as measured using the Business for Societal Impact benchmarking standard. This includes the funding we make available to support colleague giving and the direct costs of delivering our community programmes.

(*) Within the scope of EY assurance. Refer to our External assurance webpage for details.

Colleague charitable giving

The Do Good Feel Good campaign unites our colleagues to support the causes they care about through volunteering and fundraising. In 2023, we raised over £3.8 million for good causes and volunteered over 125,000 worktime hours, providing our skills and expertise to support our communities. We held our annual series of challenge events in September 2023, offering colleagues across the UK free access to fundraising events including walking, running, bungee jumping, abseiling and static cycling. Through this campaign and by NatWest Group matching donations, our colleagues raised over £440,000 for charitable causes. 

Our longstanding partnership with The Conservation Volunteers (TCV) continued during 2023 with 3,738 colleagues taking part in environmental volunteering days, which included over 62,000 more trees planted as part of the NatWest Forest. The quality of this partnership was recognised with a Silver Award at the Corporate Engagement Awards for Best Environmental or sustainable programme. 

Customer charitable giving

We have innovated in recent years to make it easier for customers to give digitally. Through our Rewards account, customers donated £1 million in 2023. £1.8 million was donated in 2023 through the simple giving functionality in our mobile banking app – bringing the total raised through this channel to £7.7 million since it was launched in 2020. Our card payment provider for businesses, Tyl, donates revenue from each transaction to its Giveback Community Fund. In 2023, it donated over £250,000 to a mixture of national and local charities.

For more information on giving and volunteering see page 36 of our 2023 ESG Disclosures Report.

Support for disasters and emergencies

Following the earthquake in Turkey and Syria in February 2023, we activated our support for the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) appeal. Over £3 million was raised to provide relief to those impacted.

Our ongoing collaboration with DEC and the £10 million raised in 2022 for the Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal was recognised with an award for Major Project of the Year at the Better Society Awards 2023. To mark one year from the appeal going live, DEC hosted a thank you event for its supporters at our St Andrew Square office in Edinburgh. The event featured a photo exhibition showcasing the ongoing work of the DEC and the partner organisations funded in Ukraine and beyond. The exhibition was also displayed at NatWest Group offices in Edinburgh and London to allow colleagues to see the impact of their generosity.

For more information on our ongoing support for Ukraine, see page 37 of our 2023 ESG Disclosures Report.