Goldman Sachs 2013 Annual Report Download - page 9

7Goldman Sachs 2013 Annual Report
Corporate Engagement
In 2013, Goldman Sachs committed more than $200 million
to philanthropic endeavors, including our tradition of strong
engagement through Goldman Sachs Gives and expanding
10,000 Women and 10,000 Small Businesses to include
new academic and non-profit partners.
Goldman Sachs Gives
Goldman Sachs Gives is a donor-advised fund through
which participating managing directors (PMDs) of the firm
can recommend grants to qualified non-profit organizations
around the world. Since the inception of Goldman Sachs Gives,
PMD compensation has been reduced by approximately
$1.2 billion to fund Goldman Sachs Gives, and approximately
15,000 grants totaling more than $720 million have been
made to various organizations in 38 countries. Since the fund
was created, more than $350 million has been granted to
community organizations supporting veterans, poverty
alleviation, medical research and other significant areas of
need. In addition, more than $145 million has been granted
to approximately 180 colleges and universities to support
financial aid. In 2013, more generally, approximately
$150 million was distributed through more than 4,500
individual grants.
10,000 Small Businesses
10,000 Small Businesses expanded its network of cities and
partners to provide small businesses with the education,
business services and capital they need to grow and create
jobs. By year’s end,
10,000 Small Businesses was operating
in more than 20 sites in the U.S. and United Kingdom. In the
U.S., we launched new sites in Philadelphia, Miami and
Detroit. In addition, loans through the program began to be
offered in Oregon, Washington, Tennessee, Virginia and
Maine. In the fall, we announced a new national partnership
that allows qualified small business owners anywhere in the
U.S. to receive training at Babson College, one of the nation’s
leading entrepreneurial schools.
In the United Kingdom, we hosted the first gathering of
10,000 Small Businesses alumni from across the country,
with more than 200 businesses attending. In conjunction
with the event, academic program partners released a
progress report on the graduating businesses to date
showing that 66 percent of U.K. program participants had
grown revenue and 77 percent of them had created jobs.
In May 2013, we released another public report, the Business
Standards Committee Impact Report, which discussed the
changes we made as a result of the BSC implementation
and how they impacted our firm. We identified three unifying
themes across the 39 recommendations, which capture
the areas of greatest change and impact on the firm:
(1) clients, and the higher standard of care we apply in
serving them; (2) reputational sensitivity and awareness,
and its importance in everything we do; and (3) the individual
and collective accountability of our people.
Most significantly, for all our employees, the experience of
initiating, approving and executing a transaction for a client
at Goldman Sachs is now fundamentally different. This
difference reflects significant changes to processes, business
standards, documentation and transaction approvals, all of
which impact our approach to decision making.
Process matters and the BSC changes have led to our
processes being more clear, comprehensive and consistent.
Business standards reflect the heightened scrutiny we bring
to our own actions and activities, the role we play as a large
financial institution and the responsibilities we have to our
clients and to global financial intermediation. Documentation
supporting our processes is more standardized and organized
around escalation procedures. Transaction approvals focus on
the core goals of serving our clients’ long-term interests and
protecting the firm’s reputation. Taken together, these changes
result in better judgments and decision making, which are
among the most important impacts emerging from the BSC.
The work underlying the BSC is part of a much larger,
ongoing commitment by the firm to be self-aware, to be
open to change and to learn the right lessons from recent
experiences. Going forward, we know we will inevitably
make mistakes, but we commit to learn from them and
respond in a way that meets the high expectations of our
clients, shareholders, other stakeholders, regulators and
the broader public.
On our Web site, in addition to the two reports, you can
view other relevant material, including a discussion on the
impact of the Client and Business Standards Committee,
an illustrated example of the life cycle of a client transaction
and video excerpts from the Chairman’s Forum, which was
a series of internal discussions led by senior management
on how we conduct ourselves in serving our clients and
protecting the firm’s reputation.