Volunteering and social commitment

Each employee is entitled to 2 additional days-off per year for volunteer work. The opportunities are very diverse. Employees can engage in individual volunteering (helping a social organization of their choice or participating as educators in the BAKCYL financial education project coordinated by the Warsaw Banking Institute). They can also participate in team volunteer projects, such as initiatives of employee groups (e.g. taking part in the Competition for Social Projects), as well as projects implemented by the CSR Bureau of the BNP Paribas Foundation in Poland.

Employee volunteering supports not only the beneficiaries, but also the employees themselves: they can develop their skills, integrate, learn sensitivity to the needs of others.

The program is coordinated by the BNP Paribas Foundation in Poland and the CSR Bureau.

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For 7 years, we have been encouraging employees from all over Poland to use their knowledge about local communities to implement their own social initiatives. This is the goal of the Competition for Social Projects, whose winners receive funding to implement their ideas in cooperation with social organizations. The initiatives we choose are rooted locally and inspired by social problems. Thanks to the cooperation of many entities they bring real social change to the beneficiaries and the entire environment.

In 2019, 174 volunteer-employees joined the Competition. They completed 34 original projects which addressed the needs of local communities in cooperation with 34 NGOs. The projects included i.a. preparing warm meals for the homeless and poverty-stricken at the Poznań Main Station in cooperation with the Soup Association; building sheds for the Open Bicycle Workshop in Warsaw’s Praga district in cooperation with the Mierz Wysoko Association; creating a floral meadow (strengthening biodiversity) in Kędzierzyn-Koźle together with the City Housewives’ Association.

The competition has had 7 editions, during which 158 projects for local communities were completed by the Bank’s employees, who contributed 7,483 hours of volunteer work. The project is financed and supported by the BNP Paribas Foundation in Poland.

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Since 2013 we have been a partner of the Bankers for the Financial Education of Youth program, BAKCYL. It is a sectoral education program coordinated by the Warsaw Institute of Banking. Its purpose is to provide young people with practical knowledge and skills related to financial services. As part of the program, volunteers – employees of the program’s partner banks – conduct finance lessons at schools. They provide financial knowledge and prepare young people for conscious citizenship.

In 2019, 95 employees of Bank BNP Paribas participated in the program. They conducted lessons entitled “Your money” and „From saving to investing” for primary school pupils, and lessons entitled „Financial market – trust in business”, “My finances – I think entrepreneurially” and “Smart investing” for secondary school students. All volunteers received  intensive workshop training to prepare them for the role of educators.

The BAKCYL project is organised by the Polish Bank Association. Currently 170 partner banks participate in it.

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Employees of Bank BNP Paribas took part in the #TrashChallenge eco-activism campaign, thus joining the 26th World Clean-up Day. The campaign was carried out in cooperation with the Nasza Ziemia Foundation and under the patronage of the General Directorate of State Forests. As part of this initiative, nearly 400 employees and their loved ones cleaned 8 forest locations in Poland, in the vicinity of Warsaw, Kraków, Ruda Śląska, Olsztyn, Lublin, Wrocław, Poznań and Gdańsk. #TrashChallenge participants also learned about ecology and the ecosystem of the forests. The campaign was organised by the BNP Paribas Foundation as part of the Bank of Green Changes educational program.

In October 2019, 20 volunteers of Bank BNP Paribas cooperated with the Łąka Foundation to sow an ecological meadow at the Bank’s Operations Center in Ruda Śląska. It was a continuation of the “Let’s make meadows around us” campaign from 2018, which produced ecological flower meadows in Warsaw and Krakow. The initiative was carried out as part of the Bank of Green Changes educational program with the support of the BNP Paribas Foundation in Poland.

Employees of Bank BNP Paribas have been supporting the “Noble Gift” campaign for years. The constantly growing number of volunteers among us was one of the impulses to start cooperation on a large scale. Since 2018, the Bank has been a strategic partner of “Noble Gift”. The official partnership and the nationwide nature of the project allow us to effectively utilise the volunteering potential among our employees.

The “Noble Gift” is a nationwide aid campaign of the WIOSNA Association. It is one of the largest social projects in Poland (and also the largest direct aid system in the world). In 2019 alone 14,562 families received support. Beneficiaries of the campaign receive packages that meet their actual needs. The parcels provide immediate help, but also have symbolic value for the families: they show that someone is thinking about them and motivate the beneficiaries to change their own situation.

3,317 volunteers from the Bank were involved in the campaign in 2019. They prepared and delivered packages to over 100 families in need from all over Poland. The work of volunteers at Bank BNP Paribas in connection with the campaign lasted nearly 3 months. A key role was played by Leaders who had been specially prepared for the task. They built teams of volunteers, and coordinated the process of completing, packing and delivering packages to the warehouses of “Noble Gift” or directly to families.

All team Leaders received support from the Bank and the Foundation. They took part in smart aid workshops and received StartPacks – financial support in the amount of PLN 1,000, which they could use to finance the purchase of package contents or for logistical purposes.

Other BNP Paribas Group companies also joined the campaign, including BNP Paribas Securities Services.

This is the second record-breaking employee-volunteering project carried out as part of the “Noble Gift” campaign. Last year, nearly 2,000 employees got involved.

The initiative was accompanied by a smart aid social campaign. Find out more about the campaign in subsection Important social topics in marketing communication

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The nationwide campaign “Your Blood – My Life”, promoting honorary blood donation, is another initiative that Bank BNP Paribas and the Foundation have been supporting long-term. In cooperation with Regional Blood Donation Centers, we have organised the Blood Donation Day for the 10th time. Employees donate blood in special ambulances and register in the bone marrow donor database. In 2019, employees from five locations of the Bank (Warsaw Kasprzaka, Warsaw Suwak, Warsaw Inflancka, Krakow Awatar and Ruda Śląska) got involved in the campaign.

Since the beginning of the program, 725 employees have participated in Blood Donation Days, donating over 205 litres of blood.

Employees of Bank BNP Paribas can also get involved in social initiatives by playing sports. The Good Kilometres social campaign is organised annually by the BNP Paribas Foundation. Employees have 30 days to cover as many kilometres as they can while cycling, running or practicing other sports. They track their activities on the Bank’s social and gamification platform. Each kilometre covered is converted into funds transferred to an NGO chosen by the employees.

In 2019, participants of the campaign collected PLN 14 thousand. PLN 12 thousand was donated to the “Little brothers of the poor” Association and PLN 2,000 to St. Christopher’s Oncological Hospice Foundation. All five editions of the campaign resulted in donations totalling PLN 54,000

Bone Marrow Donor Days are organised in cooperation with the DKMS Foundation. Bank employees can register in the bone marrow donor database. Information and registration points have been created at 4 Bank locations (Warsaw Kasprzaka, Warsaw Suwak, Krakow Awatar, Ruda Śląska) and registration packages have been sent to willing branches. The involvement of our employees is invaluable, because in c. 75% of cases the only chance for recovery is bone marrow or stem cell transplantation from an unrelated donor.

Since September 2017 Bank employees have been provided with a simple and convenient tool for individual philanthropy. Every employee can declare a monthly deduction from their salary in order to contribute to a chosen objective. They can support a chosen NGO or “Class” scholarship holders. The donor can transfer money to both causes or indicate a single one. The program may be joined at any time and participants can track its results in quarterly newsletters.

The amount collected in 2019 will allow “Class” scholarship holders to take part in a 7-day sailing and language summer camp. Furthermore, the Alivia Oncological Foundation, which was selected by donors in 2019, could continue the implementation of initiatives dedicated to cancer patients. The program is coordinated by the BNP Paribas Foundation in Poland.