Year after year Swedbank has been committed to implementing socially responsible policies. Through contributing financially and socially, we strive to share with the society by addressing its common needs and ensuring balanced and sustainable development of the company and the society.
Swedbank supports areas and projects aimed at building a better future.
Children are the future of society; therefore we have a strong focus on projects that promote all-round growth and development of the character in the youth.
Swedbank supports charity initiatives that bring the society together in the name of a better future.
We support conception and implementation of sound business ideas. Swedbank’s business support programs have been designed to encourage the development of small and medium sized enterprises.
We all are a part of the future. Let’s build it better – together!
Sponsorship principles
In considering proposals for cooperation, we attach importance to:
- project’s compliance with Swedbank’s fundamental values and the needs and preferences of Swedbank customers
- benefit for society
- professionalism of the partners
- sustainability of the project and opportunities for social solidarity initiation
- opportunities for Swedbank employees and customers to join in.
Swedbank will not support:
- projects with dubious reputation
- political and religious organizations
- projects that pose risk to the environment and people
- hazardous activities such as auto racing, motorcycle racing, combat sports, adventure sports
- individual applications.
Charity
Swedbank has made it a priority in its social responsibility strategy to facilitate sound and modern development of the charity area in Latvia. With a high sense of responsibility towards the society and the company’s values, Swedbank gives significant funds to social programmes of importance to the public.
The charity website Ziedot.lv was born out of cooperation between the foundation Ziedot (Donate) and Swedbank for the purpose of encouraging positive social changes. Ziedot.lv is a website that enables businesses and individuals to give to charitable purposes over the Internet, while those in need can apply and get support.
Cooperation between Swedbank, the LNT TV channel and the Ziedot.lv website has resulted in key social solidarity projects in Latvia – the charity campaigns “Goodness Day” and “Angels over Latvia”. The objective of these projects is to attract donations for children who, due to a hereditary disease or a tragic accident, are in need of long-term treatment or rehabilitation. In 2010, donations for this purpose amounted to LVL 621 941 and 243 children were helped.
Since the creation of the “Food bank” in autumn 2009, Swedbank has taken active part in this project, offering expertise of the bank’s specialists and also supporting it financially. Swedbank employees and their families have made a very significant contribution to supporting this social programme. In response to the call to donate food for families hit by the crisis, more than 1500 food packs were donated, providing foodstuffs of daily use.
Education
Swedbank considers the raising of the society’s general level of education to be an important task in its operation. Swedbank seeks to consolidate the perception in Latvia that education is of superior value by fostering young personalities and positive social integration because Latvia’s future depends on it. Cooperation with Latvian tertiary education institutions has evolved into a great tradition – Swedbank supports acquisition of technical resources for studies, high-quality entertainment and sports events, as well as furthering academic and professional growth of students.
“Open Mind”, the student grants competition of the Swedbank and Riga Technical University’s Development Fund, is taking place concurrently in 15 tertiary education institutions of Latvia. In developing their research papers, students can cooperate with specialists from business circles as every topic has a designated consultant, giving authors a great opportunity to learn from seasoned experts.
The “Mission Possible” is a nation-wide initiative aimed at establishing education as a value in Latvia through helping talented higher education institution graduates to become inspirational teachers and future leaders. The objective of the Mission Possible is to raise the prestige of the teacher professional and to boost students’ motivation to study and become active members and builders of the society. In addition to financial contributions to this programme, Swedbank has actively contributed to it with the competence and resources of its staff.
Around 26 000 9th graders from 825 Latvian schools, which represents 97% of Latvian 9th graders, participate in the current events knowledge competition “What’s Happening” organized by newspaper Diena. Supporting and promoting of this project year by year underlines the significance of young people with all-round education in development of the country’s future.
The “Swedbank Road School” trains around 6000 children yearly. This project goes beyond repeating road traffic rules and instructing in traffic safety principles. Its uniqueness lies in the combination of theory and practical sessions enabling students to see and have hands-on experience with what has been discussed at home with parents and in school with teachers about safety on road.
In a bid to facilitate schoolchildren’s practical knowledge of business principles and to strengthen entrepreneurial skills, Swedbank has become the strategic partner of the Junior Achievement organization for rolling out the
Student Company programme in Latvia. Thanks to cooperation and extensive training for schoolchildren and teachers, the number of student company registrations has doubled in 2010, now topping four hundred.
Support for start-ups
Swedbank supports initiatives that help new enterprises on their path to competitive business growth. The grants programme “Take-Off” was set up in cooperation with Riga City Council for the purpose of aiding the development of SMEs that have been in existence for not more than a year and motivating people, who have emigrated from Latvia, to return to Riga and start their own business. The programme helps with expenses incurred by start-ups in connection with acquisition of specialized equipment and licences, accounting and legal advisor services, remodelling of retail locations, website development and similar expenses.
The New Entrepreneurs Centre (Jobs & Society) is an organization which, thanks to support from Swedbank and other partners, provides free consultations to people who want to start business and become active entrepreneurs. The consultants are experienced business people who have accumulated knowledge in creating and managing their business, hence, this project embodies a key idea behind social corporate responsibility: the experienced ones help those who are just starting, and the big ones help the small ones.
Culture
The School Youth Song and Dance Festival is a significant part of Latvian cultural identity. 30 975 children and youth, as well as 5188 teachers participated in the festival in summer 2010. In order to motivate Latvian youth to take over and continue the tradition of Song and Dance Festival, Swedbank has become a supporter of the festival in the continuous process of preparing for this festival, at the same time setting a program for support to the young talents.
For many years Swedbank has been proud to have cooperation with the New Riga Theatre – the most professional, artistically brightest and most contemporary theatre in Latvia. Swedbank’s financial support was used for making the theatre available to schoolchildren, students and other socially underprivileged groups of population. As an example of especially successful cooperation, the joint support for the charity program “Dear Nanny” enables parents of severally ill children to visit performances of the New Riga Theatres, also raising donations for availability of subsidized nannies for these families.
The “Painting of the Year” competition has been supported since the very foundation of the bank. Through encouraging creativity and development of painting in Latvia, over the years Swedbank has become one of the key patrons of art in Latvia.
Sports
Swedbank’s Latvian Youth Basketball League is the largest youth sports organization in Latvia where 369 teams are represented by 4850 youngsters. In addition to supporting youth basketball programmes financially, Swedbank also sees to intellectual development of the young players by congratulating those with best success in studies. To encourage wholesome spending of free time, a program for schoolchildren, “Basketball Calls”, was launched.
Aiming to develop student sports system in Latvia, Swedbank has started supporting the Basketball team of the University of Latvia. In order to give talented athletes an opportunity to acquire tertiary education, the primary condition for being included on the team is that one must be a student of the university.
Swedbank has been a long-standing supporter of the Latvian Olympic Movement. The areas of cooperation include support for Latvian Youth Olympiads, Latvian Olympic Movement’s youth trainer motivation and regional development programmes, as well as the charity run Nike Riga Run, the proceeds of which are donated for treatment of ill children.
