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Encore Awards

Since 1997, Free Arts NYC has delivered one-of-a-kind educational arts and mentorship programs that inspire at-risk children to become healthier and happier, and help them perform better in school and in their personal lives.  Free Arts programs train community volunteers to mentor children in 40 schools and social service agencies, reaching 1,600 youth each year.

Deutsche Bank has been a Free Arts NYC corporate partner since 2004, contributing funding and volunteers who work directly with children facing poverty, abuse, neglect, or homelessness.  In 2009, Free Arts and Deutsche Bank took this collaboration to a whole new level, by forging a strategic partnership that was truly beneficial for both parties.  For the first time, Deutsche Bank invited employees to nominate a worthwhile charity for its annual campaign.  Employees throughout the U.S. submitting more than 70 organizations, whose missions ranged from educational access and achievement to basic human services.  Free Arts emerged as a clear employee favorite, and the charity won a bank-wide online vote.  Positive response to Free Arts’ statement of need came at a critical time for the charity: the year’s economic downturn caused greatly reduced funding for the arts and greatly increased numbers of low-income children.  Through a combination of Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation and business line contributions, employee personal donations, and company matching gifts, Free Arts received an unexpected revenue stream that ensured transformative arts experiences for over 1,000 underserved children.

For Deutsche Bank, the employee-driven collaboration excited and activated staff, inspired new creative projects, and mobilized greater volunteerism.  Deutsche Bank employees and their families stepped forward in never-before-seen numbers, embracing the Free Arts artistic mission and directly engaging in programs, fundraising, advocacy, and public relations.  Compared with the previous year, ten times the number of bank volunteers (300) engaged in bringing the arts to children, contributing 1.812 hours of service!  Employees were mobilized at every level of the corporation.

Through its partnership with Free Arts NYC, Deutsche Bank
• provided long-term volunteers for Free Arts’ core Weekly Mentor Program;
• funded two Free Arts Day events for 150 kids and a day of summer camp for another 25;
• organized two Summer of Service days, engaging 200 children with 210 bank interns;
• leveraged their other cultural contacts, and brought Free Arts families to a behind-the-scenes experience at the Guggenheim Museum and to the Big Apple Circus;
• generated PR, ringing the opening bell at the NY Stock Exchange jointly with Free Arts;
• hosted a breakfast to introduce Free Arts board and staff to senior bank employees and other corporate partners ;
• encouraged employees to do their own fundraising: several ran in the NYC Marathon and others competed in the Five Boro Bike Tour for Free Arts; some served as ‘guest bartenders’ at an after-work Happy Hour whose proceeds supported Free Arts.

During the toughest financial year in the charity’s history, Deutsche Bank’s engagement gave Free Arts the resources to focus on continued program delivery.  The Free Arts campaign gave bank employees extraordinary opportunities to embrace the optimism that is an outcome of creative expression and to experience the uplifting power of the arts themselves.  The campaign affirmed Deutsche Bank’s long-standing commitment to youth, the arts, and the local community.