Societe Generale 2026+ Charity Partner Application Process: FAQs
Eligibility Criteria
Is there any flexibility on the lower limit of £4.5m voluntary income?
The £4.5m voluntary income threshold exists to try to ensure our charity partner is not overly reliant on our funding, and that any projects we fund don’t necessarily end when our partnership does. We want our funding to fit into a sustainable pipeline for our partner. We also recognise the amount of work that goes into a partnership of this nature from both the charity and corporate sides, so we want to ensure there is infrastructure in place to manage it.
We suggest that charities with annual voluntary income of less than £4.5m take a look at the SG UK Foundation’s recently launched Bright Futures Grants, which may be a more suitable funding route.
Our voluntary income is below £4.5m, can we apply in partnership with other charities to get over the threshold?
We have decided against accepting applications from smaller charities, or a consortium of smaller charities, for this partnership. There are a few reasons behind this:
- Practically, it is much simpler to work with just one charity to deliver fundraising and volunteering activities. We are a very small team, and don’t have capacity for the additional complications of working with more than one organisation.
- A partnership of this size and type requires significant resource from our charity partner as well, and smaller charities would not have the capacity to provide this.
- One of the big reasons for bringing our fundraising and YIP delivery together in one partnership is to simplify the narrative around our CSR work. Staff engagement is a key driver for our CSR work and so we need to be able to easily articulate who we are working with and how. A collaboration of multiple organisations is likely to create complication where we are aiming for clarity.
- We want to be sensible and sustainable in who and what we’re funding. We’ve chosen the £4.5m lower limit to try to ensure our charity partner is not overly reliant on our funding and that any projects we fund don’t necessarily end when our partnership does.
- We will also not accept applications from charities whose voluntary income is above £25m.
Would you consider working with a social enterprise, CIC or other non-profit organisation?
While we greatly admire the work that many non-profit organisations are doing in the employability and social mobility spaces, this partnership is open to registered UK charities only.
Are you looking for a charity with local, national, or international reach?
We are very open to funding work with a national impact, but as our offices are based in London, we need our charity partner to have a presence there. A key part of the partnership is working together to deliver our Young Influencers Programme, which engages students with our staff at in-person events held at our offices in Canary Wharf.
This partnership will be focused on UK-based charities working with UK beneficiaries. While we would not exclude a charity that had an international arm, our partnership and funding would solely be focused on work in the UK.
Your KPIs are around the number of people impacted (number in jobs, number of beneficiaries etc). Does this mean that you are looking for a project that reaches a large audience, over one that gives more intensive support to a smaller number?
Our objectives are to make an impact on each beneficiary and in the community. We are looking to hit a middle ground between quantity and depth of impact.
In addition, if your project has a specific/niche objective, if it aligns with our overall strategy, we would consider this eligible. For example, a project supporting socially mobile individuals into careers in the tech industry may have only a small number of beneficiaries but would align with our strategy and therefore we would consider it eligible.
It’s important that we have real life stories of those impacted by our partnership to support our communications around projects both internally and externally, including impact reporting.
Are you looking for a new project to fund, or is one already in existence eligible to apply? Do you want to be the sole funders of a project or are you happy to be one of the funders? What if we have another corporate partner from Financial Services?
Any project that we fund will be considered new to the Bank as this is a new partnership. There are benefits to working on a project that is new to our charity partner, as being the first to do it is exciting and helps engage staff. However, there are also benefits to working on an existing project where the concept and impacts are known and therefore more reliable. We are open to either.
From a funding perspective, we are also open to being one of a few key funders on a project but would want to know in advance how SG would feature within the profile of other funders and who they are. We would not want to be part of a project involving other financial services organisations. We currently run other collaborative charity projects with other businesses, but with this partnership we are also looking to raise awareness of our own brand and want to showcase our impact as a business.
A lot of your existing programmes and previous partnerships focus on education and employment with young people, is it okay for charities to apply who work with adults?
Several of our existing activities are employability skills related programmes, working with young people of school age. However, we also have a number of programmes that seek to boost employment prospects regardless of age, in recognition that being unemployed or under-employed is not unique to young people.
We would be open to applications from charities that work with adults as well as young people, but the focus of the Young Influencers Programme must be on young people in Year 10-13.
When you say 'awareness raising' is that raising awareness of the partnership and/or beneficiaries' needs amongst employees?
It is both as we cannot assume staff will be familiar with the charity, the project or your beneficiaries’ needs. Our staff will not have a full understanding of the challenges faced by many groups. By improving their understanding this then helps to increase their engagement in fundraising as people recognise the need.
Application Process
As a charity we need to conduct due diligence on potential funders, are you happy for this to take place?
Yes, of course. Any questions you ask will not affect your application in any way and we understand the needs/requirements of many charities to conduct this.
Are we able to submit any further materials such as case studies and videos?
At the application stage we will only accept written submissions. However, you are welcome to use images and infographics to help bring your application to life.
If we have contacts at SG, can we approach them to help promote our charity?
We have designed our staff vote stage to be completely blind. By ‘blind vote’ we mean that our staff will not know the names of the charities, we will not invite them to present or canvas our staff, and highly discourage charities paying for targeted LinkedIn campaigns or similar. Staff will be presented with the merits of the projects/programmes they will support, and vote based on that information alone.
In line with this approach, we ask that charities who have contacts within SG do not approach them to help promote on their behalf. We want to ensure our charity partner is selected on merit alone, rather than the networks it may have.
Partnership Management
Do we need to provide a dedicated account or partnership manager?
We recommend an account/partnership manager works on the account on a full capacity basis, or one manager and one junior on the account whilst working with up to one other large partnership.
This would be in addition to anyone involved in the delivery aspect of any corporate volunteering offer. For the Young Influencers Programme, we recommend having a delivery manager who is able to dedicate an average of 2 days a week.
We make this recommendation based on guidance from our previous charity partners.
On the Shelter partnership our account manager works very closely with:
- Challenges team to help with event sign ups, stewardship and thanking
- Services team to provide regular reports on impact of funding / project progress
- Senior Leadership for approximately up to four times per year for events: e.g. CSR drinks and Services visits.
The partnership requires an account manager, would it be acceptable to recruit a member of staff to manage the partnership in the lead time between announcing the partnership and the start date?
Yes, this would be possible, please be assured that this would not form a part of our partner selection process. Our preference would be that the new role was recruited from existing staff to ensure the person is already familiar with the charity, and ideally, with managing partnerships. However, if it is not feasible to hire internally, we would expect the new staff member to have good experience of corporate account management.
Can we use some of the funds raised to cover the costs associated with an account manager?
Our priority is to fund an exciting project or core work that aligns with our business. We recognise that for you to deliver a project, there will be overhead costs associated, such as an account manager and delivery manager for the Young Influencers Programme. We therefore understand that some funds will need to be spent in this way but would like to receive this information up front, including a proposed split of funds if possible.
What senior stakeholder engagement do you anticipate needing from charities?
With previous partnerships we have set up meetings between the charity CEO and our UK CEO to help facilitate C-Suite level engagement and identify new opportunities to collaborate and expand partnerships. Additionally, our management team have been invited to key events held by the charity giving them an opportunity to learn more about the partnership but also network with peers. This engagement is not essential, but it is something that has worked well for us in the past.
How would you describe the CSR culture at Societe Generale?
Our commitment goes beyond just serving our clients. Across all our entities, we take our role in the community seriously. Our team values at SG are Team Spirit, Innovation, Responsibility and Commitment and these are demonstrated through our CSR programmes.
Our UK staff are made up of a broad range of nationalities and backgrounds, and both our employees and management have a very open and supportive culture. Our team draws on help from a wide range of internal teams and networks and generally people are very approachable and responsive. There is a strong CSR culture within the organisation with a high proportion of staff making use of their 24 hours of CSR time.
Our Funding
How and when are funds likely to be received?
Funds are donated through several processes. This includes Business Donations (payment of invoices/bank transfers), employee fundraising (JustGiving, or similar fundraising platforms, or through contactless donations – if possible), Give As You Earn (GAYE) through CAF, and from the SG UK Foundation (bank transfers/CAF). Donations come through after events and throughout the year. The largest funds come through in January after our annual Donate the First campaign.
Your KPIs are largely focused around increasing employment opportunities, will SG be offering work experience placements as part of this partnership?
We have an established summer work experience programme which is successful internally. We aren’t looking for a partner to help us deliver this, but we would be open to beneficiaries of any partnership being able to access placements through our existing structure. This is not a specific requirement but something we would explore with the successful charity if appropriate.
The SG UK Foundation provides matched funding for staff but how does this work and what is the limit? How does this contribute to the fundraising income generated?
The Foundation will commit to supporting the partnership and will be a part of the contracting from the outset with their support outlined in full at that stage. Historically, the Foundation has provided matched funding for SG UK staff fundraising, volunteering and donations matching 100% up to £1000 per event/activity. They also provide matching for payroll giving, in-kind and employee engagement initiatives. There is no upper limit of matched funding for the partnership and, previously, these donations have contributed just under half of the partnership fundraising total. Please note that the SG UK Foundation matched funding policy can be subject to change.
How does this partnership relate to Bright Futures that the SG UK Foundation recently launched?
Bright Futures is a separate initiative launched by the SG UK Foundation which also aims to enhance our commitment to social impact and inclusivity within our communities.
The SG UK Foundation’s new fund, Bright Futures, is investing £1 million over three years to empower and equip people from marginalised groups to access education and employment, driving lasting social and economic impact. Click here to find out more.