August corporate fundraising partnerships round up: part 2
Melanie May | 22 August 2018 | News
Here is part two of August’s corporate partnerships round-up, with everything from a charity-dedicated film screening, to a bushtucker trial.
Search Seven & 7 charities
Brighton-based digital marketing agency Search Seven has announced that #share7, its 2018 fundraising campaign to raise £17k for seven charities, has now reached half of its target. The next fundraising event is a charity golf day at Mid Sussex Golf Club on Thursday 30th August 2018.
Advertisement
The star ‘hole in one’ prize on the day is £10,000 cash. It is fundraising for Haywards Heath-based Group B Strep Support, local charities RISE, The Sussex Beacon and The Clock Tower Sanctuary, The Trevor Mann Baby Unit (part of the Rockinghorse), Alzheimer’s Society and the Nkuringo Foundation.
Vue & MediCinema
Vue is hosting a special preview screening of the new film Christopher Robin on 16 August with all proceeds going to MediCinema.
SockShop & Barnabus
SockShop paired up with Manchester homeless charity Barnabus at a special event in July, providing the city’s homeless community with foot care to help combat trench foot. The wartime condition is affecting rough sleepers across the UK, so the Bolton-based sock retailer arranged for free chiropody treatment to be provided to more than 60 visitors at Barnabus’ drop-in centre, and each visitor was given a selection of socks.
Chiropody treatment at the event was provided by Forgotten Feet. SockShop coordinated the event as part of its ‘Socks for a Cause’ campaign to raise awareness of the issue of trench foot amongst homeless people. Through this campaign, the company is asking the public to donate socks to homeless charities.
Well Pharmacy & two charities
Well Pharmacy has donated over £9,500 to two charities that dedicate their time to supporting and protecting the environment. The money was raised through the sale of their 5p carrier bags across their 780 pharmacies across the UK, between January and June 2018.
The charities were chosen by Well Pharmacy employees, who voted to have their say as to where the donations went. The initiative allows customers to support their local environment, as the sale of each 5p carrier bag goes to the charity in their own country.
A total of £8,189.03 has been donated to the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) in England & Wales, and a further £1,313.70 to the Scottish Wildlife Trust.
St Albans School & Mind
Two of St Albans School’s Sixth Form students, Cameron Furley and Jessica Laitner have cycled 450 miles from St Albans to Scotland and raised over £6,000 for the local branch of mental health charity, Mind. Cameron and Jessica wanted to increase awareness of the challenges of mental health and encourage teenagers to talk more openly about the topic, to ask for help when they need it, and reduce the stigma attached to the subject.
Dobbies & Teenage Cancer Trust
Garden centre chain, Dobbies, has announced its first ever annual charity partnership with cancer charity, Teenage Cancer Trust. Dobbies hopes to break previous charity fundraising records through a range fundraising activities over the next year, such as staff having a chance to win a duvet day and selling tickets for a Ladies Night shopping evening at Christmas.
The fundraising efforts will be led by a 34-strong team of Community Champions, with one in every Dobbies centre across the UK. Dobbies has raised £1,561,000 over the past five years for local charity partners, and national charity partners over the Christmas period.
However, this is the first time the retailer is to support one charity partner throughout the year.
Maxol & AWARE NI
Maxol is encouraging its customers to ‘Top up by Ten’ by donating 10p to its charity partner, AWARE NI, when purchasing fuel or anything in-store during August. At the till, customers will have the option of adding 10p to the total amount of their transaction. In addition, Maxol will also ‘Top up by Ten’ itself and donate £10,000 to AWARE.
The funds raised by the ‘Top up by Ten’ campaign will go towards helping AWARE increase awareness of positive mental wellbeing in local communities and help to provide support groups and education programmes across the country.
The Berkeley Foundation & MERU
The Berkeley Foundation has given Epsom-based charity MERU a cheque for £25,000 that will fund new Bugzis, a special micro-sized powered wheelchair that can offer very young children their first taste of independent mobility. Each Bugzi costs £5,000 and after one child has used them, they are refurbished and passed on to another child.
There is a long waiting list in Surrey and across the country for Bugzis, as they are not currently financed by the NHS.
The Rank Group & Carers Trust
The Rank Group has now raised £2m for Carers Trust. The partnership between Carers Trust and The Rank Group first began in February 2014. Since then, employees nationwide have worked hard to raise as much money as possible by undertaking various charity initiatives and fundraising activities within local communities.
In recognition of the work by Mecca team members to hit the fundraising total, the senior team from Mecca agreed to take on a final challenge, taking part in a bushtucker trial challenge, which included a menu of creepy crawlies, from critter cocktails, to mealworms and buffalo worms on a bed of lettuce sprinkled with dry cricket flour.
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.