2024 Corporate Sustainability Impact report

Sharing expertise

Driving effective corporate sustainability in the private sector starts with understanding our strengths and leveraging them for lasting impact. At PwC Middle East, our people are given the opportunity to apply their expertise without charge to help nonprofits and social enterprises to transform, empowering them to tackle societal and environmental challenges more effectively.

Not for profit organisations often rely on time given in kind in order to benefit from the support and expertise of professional services. With strong support from leadership, we’ve doubled our commitment to pro bono initiatives, reflecting our dedication to creating tangible change. In 2024, we completed eight pro bono projects across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Lebanon and Palestine, allowing organisations to access essential services and expand their reach, without diverting their limited funds from core missions.

These projects spanned various sectors, including education, healthcare and community services, and were selected with the aim of ensuring a direct and meaningful impact. Notable projects included support for organisations focused on orphan care, resources for children with disabilities, and mental health services, exemplifying the diversity of our pro bono work tailored to community needs.

This year alone, our efforts engaged 57 professionals who delivered over 7,000 hours of free services, showcasing the dedication and collaboration of our leaders and teams.

Pro bono case studies

Enhancing Ehsan’s fundraising strategy

PwC Middle East provided pro bono services to Ehsan, Saudi Arabia’s national digital platform for charitable donations, which supports over 1,300 NGOs and 7.2 million beneficiaries. Following a comprehensive gap analysis, our team developed a strategic plan to enhance Ehsan’s data collection methods, reducing errors, improving accuracy and maximising impact.

“The collaboration with PwC Middle East’s pro bono team brought valuable insights to the Ehsan platform, contributing to refining our strategic roadmap, improving user experience and enhancing our marketing efforts. Their commitment was notable and aligned with our goals of empowering the charitable sector digitally, simplifying the donation journey, and ensuring that donations reach their intended beneficiaries with clear governance and transparency. Our internal team also benefited from the expertise shared, which helped us achieve better outcomes. This collaboration has positively impacted the platform's efficiency and transparency, and continues to support our long-term objectives of creating a more accessible and impactful service. As a result, Ehsan has been able to enhance its positive effect on beneficiaries, ensuring that the donations have a greater reach and lasting impact in supporting those in need.”

Mishaal M. Bin Tayyash,Strategy and Project Management Manager of the Ehsan platform, Saudi Data & AI Authority (SDAIA)

Empowering SAUT with strategic support

Through a pro bono engagement, PwC Middle East has uplifted the operational capabilities of SAUT, a Riyadh-based institution dedicated to the education and vocational training of individuals with Down syndrome. The collaboration included a strategic plan to improve SAUT’s management and operational frameworks. Our team optimised data collection processes, discovered new revenue streams, and established comprehensive staff training programmes. These initiatives have improved SAUT’s ability to deliver top-tier education and vocational services, ensuring exceptional support for both students and staff and advancing SAUT’s mission of fostering inclusion, acceptance and integration for individuals with Down syndrome.

“The partnership with PwC Middle East has been a transformative experience for our organisation. Their team's deep understanding of our cultural context and the educational challenges we face has been invaluable. They not only helped us refine our services and broaden our scope but also provided actionable recommendations aligned with international standards. The project's impact on our organisation has been profound, particularly in enhancing our management practices, identifying new revenue streams, and investing in staff development, all of which will ultimately benefit our students. The commitment and professionalism demonstrated by the PwC team exceeded our expectations, making this collaboration an exceptional and highly recommended experience.”

Zaina Zaidan,Executive Director of SAUT

Transforming care at Caritas Baby Hospital

PwC Middle East provided pro bono support to the Caritas Baby Hospital in Bethlehem to enhance access to quality care. A strategy was developed to identify new services to better support children in need. The operational efficiency programme focused on priorities set by hospital leadership, resulting in an improved patient and parent experience, hospital-level KPIs and scorecards, a strengthened employee performance framework and the launch of a new training programme.

“PwC health industries team provided us with great insights and offered implementation support as we worked on improving the patient and employee journey, while identifying operational and managerial KPIs that enabled the hospital to boost its operations. It also helped set up actions towards enhancing the learning and development of our cadre by setting up and updating procedures, policies and increasing the communication between management and staff. The KPIs we set allowed us to review and update our calculations, introduce new measurement tools, and gain deeper insights into our daily and monthly operations. The PwC Middle East team also helped identify key KPIs for both managerial and board-level decision-making. This has enabled our management to identify opportunities and challenges, develop mitigation plans, and introduce interventions to support our community and boost patient flow.”

Issa Bandak,Chief Executive Officer of Caritas Baby Hospital Bethlehem