Sometimes, the greatest contribution you can make to a cause is the gift of your time.

Around the world, RBC employees and pensioners play a vital role in helping build the prosperity of the communities in which they live and work, by volunteering their time and expertise for good causes.

RBC’s employees and pensioners are passionate volunteers and, as financial services professionals, one of the most significant contributions they make is by sharing their knowledge. You’ll find our employees on not-for-profit boards and committees, providing money-management workshops, and sharing knowledge about budgeting and business planning.

While we can’t take credit for their efforts, we celebrate and thank our employees for all they do to build strong, healthy communities.

To see profiles of some of our employees who volunteer in their communities, please visit our Donations site on rbc.com.

DOLLARS FOR DOERS
RBC’s Employee Volunteer Grants Program was launched in 1999 to support and encourage community involvement. Employees and pensioners who volunteer a minimum of 40 hours a year to a registered charity are eligible for a $500 grant to the organization in their honour.

Many of these grants are applied to specific projects at smaller organizations that do not even have the resources to fundraise, so they can have a real impact.

Since 1999, RBC has made over 8,500 grants and donated more than $4.4 million to celebrate our employees’ volunteer efforts. We expanded this program to our operations in the United States in 2004, and provided 117 grants there in 2005.

CREATING A CULTURE OF VOLUNTEERS
In addition to supporting the efforts of our employees through our Employee Volunteer Grants Program, we also strive to support programs that will help create and nurture a culture of volunteerism.

For example, in 2005, we donated $10,000 to Framework Foundation, an organization geared to engaging young, urban Canadians in volunteer activities through innovative initiatives, such as an art auction in which young people bid volunteer hours rather than money. Framework Foundation also promotes agencies that have compelling volunteer opportunities, and help the sector to share best practices in volunteer management.

As a founding partner, we also continued to support Altruvest with a gift of $35,000 in 2005, supporting their BoardMatch program, which introduces registered charities to talented, enthusiastic and informed professionals willing to serve on the board of a charitable organization. To date, the program has matched over 1,300 volunteers with charitable organizations, and will be expanding beyond Toronto and Vancouver to other cities across Canada in 2006, including Calgary, Fredericton and Thunder Bay.

RBC also supported Action Canada in its quest to enhance employee volunteer opportunities with Aboriginal organizations.