5 Million Futures: Driving positive change, creating better futures
Empowering people and communities to unlock their full potential
We believe that education and skills lay the foundation for opportunity and progress
Since 2016, Deloitte has been on a mission to create better futures - mobilising our people to drive positive change through volunteering, fundraising and pro bono work.
Through our 5 Million Futures programme, we partner with schools and charities across the UK who share our goals, working together to overcome barriers to education, skills and employment.
We focus our investment where we can make an impact that really matters. Working with over 80 charity partners, we are strengthening school leadership teams, we are building digital skills to help people thrive in a virtual world, and we are empowering underrepresented groups to access the world of work.
Since we have launched, our work has made a positive difference to almost 3 million futures. These are the stories of our impact over the last year.
Building digital skills to bridge the digital divide
When was the last time you didn’t rely on the internet? Whilst we are living in an increasingly virtual world, there are 5 million people across the UK who don’t have access to the skills and technology they need to navigate the digital world.
Mohammad’s story: After fleeing war and emigrating to the UK with his wife and children, Mohammad initially struggled to find his place in society. Through Refugee Action he was given a repurposed Deloitte laptop which not only enabled him to find a job but transformed the lives of his whole family.
“When I left Afghanistan, the only thing I could take with me was my life. It was tough to manage; four of us had one phone to connect to the digital world. You need a better device like a laptop to join online courses. The other problem was job hunting; it was almost impossible without a digital device.”
Last year we donated almost 4,000 repurposed laptops to schools and charities, helping many others like Mohammad secure better futures.
To further our work on digital inclusion, we provided the UK’s leading disability equality charity, Scope, with free access to our internal Generative AI platform ‘PairD’, sharing the power of technology to help make AI more inclusive and accessible.
We worked with our partner charity, CAST, to deliver Deloitte Digital Connect, a six-month programme that enabled 30 charities to scale their impact through technology which included pairing the participants to Deloitte mentors who are experts in their field.
We are also raising awareness and informing policy working through our charitable relationships. We’ve supported FutureDotNow and a coalition of industry leaders, to formulate a nationwide action plan focused on closing the essential digital skills gap for working-age adults.
5 Million Futures: Building better futures; one future at a time
We are committed to making a difference to people's futures through volunteering, fundraising and pro bono work. We achieve this by partnering with over 80 charities and schools to create life-changing and measurable impact
Driving strong school leadership to tackle educational inequality
We are actively addressing educational inequality by leveraging our skills and expertise to support teachers and students in some of the poorest areas of the country.
Harshita’s story: Harshita is a manager in Consulting, a volunteer school governor and passionate about education.
“I had heard that governors are typically older, and so felt as a younger person I could offer a diversity of perspective and an experience that is more focused on technology to drive educational achievement.”
With the help of governance recruitment charity, Governors for Schools, we’re supporting school governing bodies to be more representative of the communities they serve by enabling our people, like Harshita, to volunteer in school governance roles.
We are continuing our commitment to supporting school leadership, through our long-standing partnership with Teach First. This year we have supported 548 teachers to complete their National Professional Qualifications. We’ve also leveraged the best of our tools which support our clients’ leadership, conducting nine Headteacher Impact Labs and running Business Chemistry sessions for school leadership teams.
Alongside our focus on school leaders, we are driving change in the classroom through 32 local school relationships. Our investment has included our volunteers committing time to help 3,895 children build their skills and confidence through employability and life skills sessions, reading and tutoring.
Last year, we also became a founding member of the Business Taskforce for Early Childhood established by The Princess of Wales in 2023, creating a report in May 2024 for The Royal Foundation for Early Childhood. The report evidences how investing in early childhood can generate up to £45.5 billion for the UK economy, and help to create a healthier, happier society.
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Empowering underrepresented groups to access the world of work
Across the UK, people from underrepresented groups face a range of barriers to employment. We work with inclusion focused charities Scope, Blueprint for All, Just Like Us and Young Women’s Trust, funding targeted programmes and bursaries to unlock untapped talent and secure better outcomes.
Senay’s story: Senay is at university in Manchester and was awarded a Deloitte bursary, providing both financial support and a three-year programme of mentorship, workshops and access to opportunities.
“This programme has been a transformative experience, offering invaluable opportunities to engage with senior professionals at Deloitte whilst also providing me with opportunities to work with my peers in workshops to further develop my skills.”
The Deloitte Bursary scheme was set up with Blueprint for All to invest in future talent like Senay. Through this programme, Deloitte has supported 38 students from Black, Asian or minority ethnic and low socio-economic backgrounds at universities across England.
Alongside wider support, we provide all our charity partners with access to expertise through pro bono work. For LGBT+ charity Just Like Us, we supported them to build an external communications strategy, develop the foundations of a new alumni programme, and helped the team prepare for external audits.
Our focus on creating a more inclusive society also saw us complete four impactful projects with Young Women’s Trust, including a transformative digital project that reviewed the charity’s website and content effectiveness. We also featured one of the young women in their network in a Deloitte Global documentary celebrating Better Futures.
And with Scope, the disability equality charity, we helped them progress on their community engagement strategy and delivered several initiatives championing accessibility. This included commissioning them to train our Deloitte Banking Operations Academy team on accessible programme delivery.
Real and lasting change through volunteering
Volunteering is an integral part of our 5 Million Futures strategy and empowers our people to directly give back to society.
Our annual firmwide volunteering month in June, saw over 1,250 professionals invest their time and skills to drive positive change. They volunteered in activities ranging from supporting refugees to develop the skills they need to access the UK job market, delivering career talks in schools to prepare students for the professional world to helping protect marine life.
Last year, we also developed a range of initiatives for teams to come together and volunteer. From addressing charities’ strategic challenges with Pilotlight, to building playgrounds for children with Splash Projects, our people embraced the opportunity to come together with their colleagues to make a real and lasting difference.
Creating a more equal, inclusive society – one future at a time
The work that we have been doing has been recognised by the third sector. We have been shortlisted for 10 awards at the Business Charity Awards, Charity Times Award, Corporate Engagement Awards, Third Sector Awards and the Better Society Awards, winning in three categories. None of this could have been achieved without the hard work and dedication of our volunteers and charity partners.
We know there is still much work to be done with our incredible partners. Our ambition is to impact the futures of 5 million people and contribute to our global goal of making a positive difference to 100 million futures. We will continue this vital work, supported by our people and driven by the belief, that it is possible to build a more equal, inclusive society, by transforming one future at a time.
Volunteering is a win-win. Even the smallest of gestures can make a difference, and taking a pause from the daily routine to engage with activities that support others helps rebalance my sense of wellness and positivity.
Futures Month Volunteer
