Introduction

"PRUPIM’s community investment activities continue to remain
a key aspect of how we deliver our business objectives. From corporate
fundraising and employee volunteering, to the involvement of our shopping
centres in the Prudential Grass Roots and Prudential 4 Youth programmes,
we are committed to engaging with communities - a good relationship with
the community is also good for our business."
Mark Boor, Director of Asset Management

Prudential 4 Youth and Prudential Grass Roots continued as key delivery mechanisms for our community activities during 2006. Prudential 4 Youth is a partnership between Prudential plc and Crime Concern and has been running for over 12 years. The programme seeks to empower and engage young people as partners in tackling crime and community safety issues through active citizenship and social enterprise. Highlights from the Prudential for Youth programme in 2006 included:

In January 2006 a secondee from PRUPIM's Accounts team became the first ever Assistant to the National Programme Manager, Prudential 4 Youth. This was a particularly important moment for the Programme as the Programme Manager is a Crime Concern employee and his Assistant is a PRUPIM employee, thereby reinforcing the links between the two organisations and emphasising the importance that PRUPIM places on the Programme.
The Prudential 4 Youth model was also adopted at The Mall in Uxbridge (The Mall Uxbridge 4 Youth) and Luton (The Mall Luton 4 Youth). Furthermore, we jointly funded a project with Capital Shopping Centres in Manchester (Manchester Arndale 4 Youth).
TXT Zones (the outcome of the Prudential 4 Youth project at West Orchards, Coventry) went from strength to strength: it was visited by Labour MP Hazel Blears in March, as well as winning both the British Council for Shopping Centre’s Sceptre Award for Technological Innovation, and the Deutsche Bank Spotlight Award.

The Prudential Grass Roots programme also benefited from a range of activities during 2006. Grass Roots supports communities to improve their local environment. Run by BTCV, the UK’s leading practical conservation charity (and funded by Prudential plc), the programme is helping to drive the regeneration for people and wildlife in communities around Prudential owned properties across the UK. Highlights from the Grass Roots programme in 2006 included:

In collaboration with Capital Shopping Centres and J T Baylis (co-owners of The Mall, Bristol), the ‘Three Brooks Grass Roots project’ was launched. This project has involved many community events at a local nature reserve, mainly dealing with woodland management.
Youth Roots was also launched in Manchester. This was a follow up to the highly successful and award-winning Grass Roots project in Manchester, and it took place in the same area, Highfield Park. PRUPIM donated £10,000, which was matched by the Department for Communities and Local Government. The project was specifically aimed at engaging hard-to-reach young people with their local environment. Environmental conservation and art-based projects were used to facilitate the achievement of this aim. The project is due for completion in early 2007.

At a corporate level, we also continued our commitment to a range of community initiatives, including employee volunteering where we achieved a high 18% volunteering rate for all head office employees (3% higher than our target). The profile of Give as You Earn also continued to increase, with an additional 24% being contributed by employees compared to the previous year. We are also pleased to report that overall, our total community investment (as measured by the London Benchmarking Group methodology), increased by 28%, mainly due to the secondment of a PRUPIM employee to the Prudential 4 Youth programme, as well as increases in staff fundraising, event hosting for charities and furniture donations. Further details of our performance in relation to community investment can be found here.