City wakes up to good works

AMERICAN banking giant JP Morgan is donating Untitled 1989, a picture by US photographer Cindy Sherman, to Britain's National Art Collections Fund. It goes on display at next month's Saved! exhibition at the Hayward Gallery before taking up permanent residence in the V&A collection.

It's a generous gift - the picture is worth many hundreds of thousands of pounds - and is part of a JP Morgan programme of supporting living artists.

Walter Gubert, global chairman of JP Morgan's investment banking division, is keen to have its name tag attached to the gift. 'This is about being at home in one of our most important markets, and at home means supporting the best of arts and culture in Britain,' he says.

Getting closer to British life and putting something back can only be good for business for a bank headquartered in Manhattan, a point not lost on the bank's co-head of marketing, Carol Lake. 'Just giving money is not what we want to do,' she says. 'We want to know how it makes a difference to the community and the people involved in it.'

For JP Morgan and other banks, law companies and accountancy firms in the City, this means doing much more charity and pro bono work. Gone are the days when they would give up their time or money willy-nilly and when few of the big players and fee-earners in the firm took it seriously.

Today, 'social responsibility' is a core activity of any self-respecting organisation. Their generosity shouldn't be doubted but they also expect something in return, albeit intangible. In Lake's words, her bank is aiming to 'leverage' its rich art collection by deciding what to sponsor.

Done properly, as in the case of the painting, everybody benefits: the nation gets valuable art free, the artist gets her work on display, the bank gets kudos and goodwill. It can be just as effective in its own way as any amount of big-ticket sponsorship, with accompanying razzmatazz.

From backing art exhibitions to the thousands of man-hours given up by City professionals helping out at local schools, a new generation of do-gooders is clamouring to show there is a compelling business case for supporting worthy causes in the wider community.

Accountancy giant KPMG is one of several City firms heavily involved in a push to send professionals into State schools to help children with maths and English coaching during lunch breaks. About 100 of its staff also lend their expertise to headteachers in a mentoring programme, part of a 4,000-strong national 'partners in leadership' course involving many other City firms.

KPMG partner Neil Sherlock, who is mentor to Nitsa Sergides, head of the Grafton Primary School in Islington, denies the firm gets involved simply for public relations.

'We do it because we enjoy it but clearly there is a business case, too. It helps retention, motivation and, increasingly, recruitment,' he says. 'Our involvement in the community is one of the top three issues that graduates raise with us when they are considering joining the firm - graduates treat these issues a lot more seriously than they did a decade ago.'

Law firms such as Linklaters, Freshfields and Clifford Chance are also involved in the schools programme. DLA, one of Britain's largest lawyers, estimates it gave 6,000 man hours in community help last year. Managing partner Nigel Knowles gives up time every month to be mentor to Jan Cruse, head of Charles Edward Brooke College in Lambeth.

While he recognises that the work is a response to a sense of civic duty, he adds that it also helps the employer-employee relationship. 'We think people feel good about being in a firm that puts something into society,' he says.

The company mentions its community work in its pitches for legal work. 'It may not be the reason for winning a job but we know more and more clients do take an interest in what sort of a firm we are culturally - community work is one way of showing it,' says a DLA source.

City law firms were jolted earlier this year when BAE Systems managing director Terence Black reportedly said he would not be giving out new legal work to firms that could not show how they have benefited the wider communities in which they work. That sort of approach will be music to the ears of City fundraising initiatives such as Heart of the City, a project set up by the Bank of England, the Financial Services Authority and the Corporation of London three years ago.

Its head, former Barclays chairman Andrew Buxton, says: 'The most important weapon we have in encouraging a new company to undertake a community programme is to show the benefits that can come to the community and to the operational company.'