Quilter has donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to charity through its foundation - in return it reaps the benefits of an emotional connection to the organisation, which is evident in areas such as talent retention, says Bethan Lloyd.
Quilter's corporate foundation launched in 2018, predominantly funded by a large endowment it had inherited as part of the separation from Old Mutual.
Lloyd, who is head of responsible wealth management strategy at Quilter, says: "The idea behind the foundation is to break down the barriers to prosperity for young people. So it's like the inverse with our corporate tagline, which is to create prosperity for the generations of today and tomorrow."
The foundation has a number of charity partnerships, as well as a local community fund, which allows it to provide one-off smaller grants to local charities and is seen as a good way to get colleagues and advisers to engage.
So far this year the donation has donated £610,000 to charitable causes.
Its funding comes from two streams, the corporate entity, which donates a set amount every year, which predominantly funds longer term strategic partnerships.
And the local community fund, which is funded by advisers and colleagues and which gets apportioned out every quarter to chosen causes. This is then matched by Quilter.
So far in its existence this fund has raised £379,000 from staff and advisers, which has been raised to a total of £663,000 by Quilter.
My most memorable campaign: A volunteering day with School of Hard Knocks
"The course basically combines employability skills with boxing.
"We had about 10 colleagues involved and I was lucky enough to be one of them, and about 10 individuals who'd been through this course who we then took off for interviews throughout the day. It was the first time that everyone had done that kind of face to face volunteering again after covid.
"And in that moment, you genuinely saw people you would never have met in many years just out on the street, having the best conversation both taking something from experience and understanding a whole different perspective on something.
"It was just I think so lucky, so easy to do. And it really makes a difference to both sides of the equation and I think it's brilliant for an organisation like ours to be able to offer that to the young people that we're working with, but also the colleagues that are with us because it demonstrates to them how valuable their time can be."
Early beginnings
When the foundation first started all its focus was on a strategic partnership with one charity, the Carers Trust. Partnerships then rotated, with the foundation expanding to a handful of live ones currently.
The whole point of the community side of the foundation, says Lloyd, is to give advisers and colleagues the opportunity to play a part in what the foundation does, albeit within the spirit of the overall project.
"The local community fund enables colleagues to both nominate causes that resonate with them, and to fundraise generically for the foundation, meaning that you're sort of fundraising for the ability of the foundation to give back to community causes that are colleague or adviser choices.
The foundation is a symbol of us wanting [advisers] to be with us because we're about more than simply what we deliver to the end client."But it's not necessarily that I am fundraising because I want that charity to get a grant, I'm fundraising because I believe in wanting the foundation to be able to give back and I might also nominate a charity as part of that."
This also means being able to respond in moments that matter to people, such as the Covid crisis and currently, the Ukraine crisis, for which the Quilter foundation has raised more than £100,000.
Reaping rewards
Going forward, Quilter has set itself ambitious goals because it's not just the charities that benefit from the fundraising efforts. Quilter, the corporate, too is reaping the rewards. "I would hope that we would be on an upward trajectory," says Lloyd.
"The most important thing we get out of having a foundation is the ability for our colleagues to genuinely give back and to feel as though the company that they work for cares about more than simply turning a profit.
"Clearly there are benefits from public perception as well. But I think the primary benefit is that tie that binds, it's that emotional connection to us as an organisation which is increasingly demonstrated to be a core factor in colleague decision making about talent retention.
"And for our advisers that can go anywhere in the market, why would they choose to be with us? And I think the foundation is a symbol of us wanting them to be with us because we're about more than simply what we deliver to the end client."
She also says it's a way to remain customer centric and move with the times.
"Clearly our target market is a particular demographic but that demographic is going to shift over the next 20 to 30 years and therefore it's really important that we as an organisation have those cultural measures to drive us with that change."
carmen.reichman@ft.com
