Education: dedicated to empowering change

Education is a crucial tool for bringing about change and enriching lives. We are dedicated to helping people reach their full potential. Our initiatives aim to provide the knowledge and competencies to navigate the rapidly changing world and enable personal growth.

Financial literacy is essential for personal independence and career success. Our support in this area helps school students, job starters and entrepreneurs take ownership of their financial future. Across the globe, Deutsche Bank employees share their professional knowledge and expertise to promote financial literacy, inclusion, and entrepreneurial success.

So geht Geld (‘How money works’) is our flagship financial education project in Germany. Deutsche Bank volunteers give students aged 11 upwards practical education on banking, investments, and other financial topics, in class and online. Their commitment to this goal runs deep. Our employees have made more than 3,700 school visits since So geht Geld began in 2021, reaching over 88,000 young people. You will also find bankers in the classroom in Spain, where the Your Finance, Your Future programme is helping educate the next generation on how to manage finances in a digital world.

Without financial skills, it is more difficult for young people to make sound financial decisions during their lives. In the US, we are working with educational nonprofit W!se to educate high school students across the country. Less than three in ten US high school students are financially literate. Our employees have helped develop an app that helps students prepare for a standardised financial literacy test that is recognised by colleges and employers. We have also provided our expertise in AI to improve the financial literacy exam process. Every year more than 150,000 students graduate from the programme. What is more, our employees also go into high schools and teach financial literacy to students together with W!se.

Entrepreneurs need these skills as well, to turn a startup into a sustainable success. Deutsche Bank has a long history of supporting pioneering ventures that have a social purpose. Projects like the startsocial competition in Germany and, for more than 30 years, the Deutsche Bank Awards for Creative Entrepreneurs in the UK, have provided advice on financial planning and business development to help manage the road ahead.

It is never too early or too late to become financially literate. Our partnership with Shanghai Better Education Development Center in China teaches financial literacy to children from low-income communities. The programme not only instils good financial habits from a young age, it strengthens the financial resilience of the whole family.

Our partnership with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India supports women workers from the informal economy. The programme we support not only equips these women with skills specific to their area of work but also provides essential skills such as financial literacy. This empowers the women, leading to financial and food security, asset ownership and economic freedom.

Projects like Pathways to Banking & Finance in the UK demonstrate how the transfer of knowledge can have social as well as personal impact. The programme provides high achieving students from low socio-economic backgrounds with the skills, experience, knowledge, and confidence to access higher education, training and careers in the banking and finance sector.  

In South Africa, where youth unemployment is a persistent problem, our partnership with Sparrow Schools teaches unemployed youth employable skills.

Finding a vocation can be life-changing for anyone, and even more so for individuals with disabilities. At Maison Chance in Vietnam, we sponsor training in valuable IT skills that can provide long-term employment and an independent life.

As well as improving access to education, we look to remove barriers to educational engagement and attainment. Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation has worked with the nonprofit Counseling in Schools and other organisations for more than nine years to support the educational needs and wellbeing of students living in temporary housing in New York City.

Education is also fundamental to building an inclusive society where everyone can prosper. This is an overarching theme of our global corporate social responsibility strategy. With populism, racism, extremism, and discrimination becoming more pervasive in many societies, there is an urgent need to reinforce democratic values and mutual understanding especially among the young. We partner with youth education projects that promote tolerance, empathy, and social engagement. One example is the Dialog Leben (‘Dialogue in action’) project in Germany, which teaches students about the importance of freedom and equality and encourages them to stand up against hate speech and prejudice.  

In Germany, we also support ZWEITZEUGEN e.V..The non-profit organisation encourages and empowers people to become secondary witnesses by passing on the stories of Holocaust and standing up against antisemitism and other forms of discrimination. The charity offers workshops as well as formats for project days and digital storytelling. We have also helped the Museum of Jewish Heritage in the US expand its Holocaust education work, including access to its new exhibition for children, to public school students as young as the age of nine, through free museum field trips. We provide funding to the school outreach programme of the Anne Frank Trust in the UK as well, which empowers students aged 9-15 to challenge all forms of prejudice. This programme reached 55,000 young people in 2023.

In Asia Pacific, where many LGBTQIA+ people experience a high degree of discrimination, our support includes strategies for completing education, accessing vocational training and career counselling to help them embark on a path to self-reliance. Hong Kong Unison is a human rights charity that does important work to advance racial equality and equal opportunities in Hong Kong. Our support helps run workshops in secondary schools that promote respect for diversity and harmony among students from different ethnic backgrounds.

The awareness raised through the cultural sensitivity discussions has led to more respectful and informed relationships among students from diverse backgrounds, fostering a more inclusive and welcoming school environment.Dr. John Tse, Executive Director of Hong Kong Unison

Since 2013, Deutsche Bank has reached over 6 million people in more than 28 countries through these projects and many other education initiatives. We are committed to building on this success through strategic partnerships in all regions.