Within sponsoring we are focusing on the social involvement of PwC and how we can play a meaningful role in this as a knowledge and expertise partner. This means that we engage in dialogue with our sponsorships about their societal challenges. This is where you see a clear shift from sponsorship to partnership: where working together and engaging in dialogue are at the heart of our collaborations. Within these agreements, in addition to a financial contribution, there is always a Value in Kind component: hours of our people that we make available to utilize knowledge and expertise of PwC for (social) problems, challenges and issues.
We have been a proud partner of World Press Photo since 2019. The goal of World Press Photo (WPP) is to connect the world to the stories that matter. This partnership is one of the ways in which we want to show that we too are at the heart of society. That we listen to what is happening around us, so that we can further tailor our service to what society asks of us. So let’s create tomorrow.
Based on this promise, we work with World Press Photo on a number of projects every year involving diversity, verification (authenticity of photographs) and cybersecurity. These are crucial issues in this fast-changing digital world and we offer World Press Photo guidance in addressing them, not only by providing financial support but also, and more importantly, by sharing our expertise.
Marc Diepstraten, member of the Board of Management of PwC speaks to Joumana El Zein khoury, new executive director of the World Press Photo Foundation, about our partnership. ‘One of the reasons our partnership works so well is because we share the same values’, she says.
After the announcement of the World Press Photo of the Year 2021, we displayed the winning photo from Mads Nissen for several weeks prominently on the building of our head office in Amsterdam. At that occasion we asked the Danish photographer what he wants his picture to convey.
According to Mads, with great photography, like great literature, you need duality, a yin to a yan. ‘With this picture I hope people will realise the seriousness of the COVID-19 crisis. At the same time it is a positive message. There is a study that says if you hug someone for just twenty seconds, you release all kinds of positive hormones. And that is healthy for you ánd the person you are hugging. When somebody sees my picture, I hope he thinks: when I get home, I’m gonna hug my wife, my kids, my mother, or even my colleague and let the positive feeling spread out.’
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World Press Photo of the Year 2021 - The First Embrace - Mads Nissen
In order to make clear the importance and reasons for our partnerships to our own people, we also pay a lot of attention to them internally. Last summer, for example, we organised our own PwC photo competition in consultation with World Press Photo. As in our day-to-day work, we asked those taking part to look at the predefined topics from different perspectives. That resulted in some fine pictures in the three chosen categories: beautiful Netherlands, connection, and the free category.
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PwC uses its knowledge and expertise to support clients and organisations in a wide range of market sectors. PwC has a number of conditions for concluding a sponsorship relationship.
We only accept requests for sponsoring if all the conditions are met.