A baker’s dozen of great fundraising partnerships
Melanie May | 6 May 2021 | News
Our latest round up of some of the great corporate fundraising and charity partnerships announced in recent weeks, from ScS’s support for Bowel Cancer UK to Vodafone’s work with the Good Things Foundation.
ScS, Lorraine, & Bowel Cancer UK
Twenty-two empty two-seater sofas took over Sunderland’s Stadium of Light in April to represent the 44 people who lose their lives every day due to bowel cancer. Sofa and carpet specialist ScS has been working with ITV’s Lorraine to raise awareness of the cancer and its symptoms, with bowel cancer survivor Deborah James presenting part of the ITV show from an ScS sofa at the stadium on 20 April to talk about issues surrounding this type of cancer. The stadium holds 49,000 seats: a number close to those diagnosed with the disease each year in the UK (42,000). To raise more awareness, ScS has added stickers to its fleet of delivery vans, has informational signs in all of its stores as well as featuring the campaign in its TV ads, which ran from 22 April to 4 May. ScS will also donate £24,901 to Bowel Cancer UK: equivalent to the number of miles around the Earth, with staff attempting to complete this distance in a sponsored walk and raise more funds.
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Thames Water & Dementia UK
In time for Dementia UK’s national ‘Time for a Cuppa’ Week (May 1 – 8) Thames Water’s employees have chosen Dementia UK as its new charity partner for the next two years following a company-wide poll. The charity will receive donations collected through a range of fundraising activities organised by the company and mass participation events such as the London Marathon, the Reading Half Marathon and Thames Path Challenge. The funds raised will go towards funding Admiral Nurses and the Admiral Nurse Dementia Helpline. The company has also run dementia awareness sessions for its staff, and customers with dementia qualify for its free priority service register (PSR), which can provide them with extra support during a water supply interruption and tailored communications services. Last year Thames Water staff voted for a continued partnership with charity partner WaterAid and to also support another charity, to be chosen by employees every two years.
The Insights Family and Starlight
The Insights Family and Starlight have announced a partnership, formed after new The Insights Family data helped enable Starlight to help further understand UK families’ attitudes, behaviours, and consumption patterns, and to help understand what matters to children when it comes to technology as well as helping to cement its new strategy. The data shone a light on how kids’ habits differ greatly as well as reiterating the importance of technology being an enabler when it comes to creativity, imagination, and storytelling. It also helped Starlight identify the latest characters and influencers that children know and love. The data has helped to fuel a new strategy with an aim to modernise and improve the hospital experience for children.
Asthma UK, British Lung Foundation & Irwin Mitchell LLP
Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation have secured a three-year corporate partnership with legal and financial specialists Irwin Mitchell LLP. The move aims to boost the support services available to people living with lung disease by helping with the running of a network of 150 volunteer-led support groups around the UK. Irwin Mitchell will also help towards other BLF support group activities during the partnership, such as a Volunteer Conference, which aims to bring together the group support leaders to celebrate their achievements, recognise their contribution and provide further training and networking opportunities. Irwin Mitchell joins Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation’s network of Living Well Alliance members.
Let’s Get Lost & Lamp
Let’s Get Lost, a Leicestershire-based outdoor adventure company, has announced a new partnership to support Lamp (Leicestershire Action for Mental Health Project). Let’s Get Lost has pledged to support the Lamp mental health charity by donating 10% of ticket prices for hiring of kayaks to customers using a specific code (LP10).
Greyzip & Sanctus
Colchester based digital marketing agency greyzip has partnered with homeless charity Sanctus to support their work in the community. The greyzip team has provided SEO, social media, and website support to Sanctus so the team can focus on their frontline work. The increase in Sanctus’s online presence has had a direct impact on the amount of funds raised, while the team at greyzip also made a £500 donation to the charity which provided enough provisions for the café the Sanctus team runs for a whole week. They are also walking 280km during of May to represent the estimated 280,000 people in the UK dealing with homelessness. All funds raised from the team’s sponsored walk will also be donated to Sanctus.
Vodafone & Good Things Foundation
Vodafone is working with Good Things Foundation to connect digitally excluded families in disadvantaged areas of the UK. Vodafone has provided unlimited data SIMs and dongles to connect over 2,500 people, enabling them to access support services, online education and employment opportunities. The Good Things Foundation’s ‘Connecting Families’ programmeincludes specialist one-on-one support to ensure that, in addition to devices and connectivity, every family learns essential digital skills so they can benefit fully from the tech they’ve been given. Vodafone has also provided Mi-Fi devices and unlimited data SIMs to support adults with learning disabilities and their carers via Good Things Foundation and Mencap.
Central England Co-op & Dementia UK
Central England Co-op and Dementia UK are celebrating hitting the £1.5 million milestone since their partnership began. The Society has been supporting the charity for the past three and a half years with members and colleagues taking on an array of challenges from jumping out of planes to sponsored walks and litter picks to support the cause. Central England Co-op has also stepped up its support over the last 12 months and made an immediate £25,000 donation at the start of pandemic as Dementia UK saw a spike in demand on its Admiral Nurse Dementia Helpline. The total donated over the course of the last three and a half years of the partnership has been used to help pay for the creation of eight Admiral Nurses, additional training of Admiral Nurses and the ongoing staffing of the free Admiral Nurse Dementia Helpline.
Cadent Foundation & charities
Fifteen charities across the North West have received a share of a £25,000 grant fund from the Cadent Foundation, after being nominated and voted for by Cadent employees and customers across the region. Through its ‘Connecting Colleagues, Customers and Communities’ initiative, Cadent employees in the North West were asked to trial a new approach to the way in which local grants are allocated – by nominating local charities which were then shortlisted and put forward to a public vote. More than 1000 customers took part in the voting process with the winning charity in each county being awarded the top grant of £3000 and the runners up each receiving £1000. Derian House Children’s Hospice in Chorley, Pure Insight in Stockport, Greenbank in Liverpool, MIND in Furness in Barrow and the Oasis Centre for Young People in Ellesmere Port, received the highest number of votes in each county.
The Queen B Boutique & City Hospice
Small business owner Jodie Tanner and The Queen B Boutique, which has stores in Penarth and Barry, has donated £1500 to City Hospice, funding 10 days of nursing care by a clinical nurse specialist. The Queen B’s first dedicated donated day was 12 April 2021 to celebrate the reopening of retail in Wales. Tanner had been du to host a Fashion & Fizz event in aid of City Hospice in April 2020, which had to be postponed. Still wanting to show her support, she decided the sale of her VIP cards and carrier bags would go to City Hospice for the rest of 2020 and to donate the proceeds to the hospice’s Donate a Day campaign, which encourages supporters to donate or raise £150 to pay for a dedicated day of nursing by a City Hospice clinical nurse specialist.
DF Capital & City of Trees
Commercial lending and personal savings bank DF Capital has chosen City of Trees as its 2021 company charity. City of Trees is planting trees and restoring woodlands for the people and wildlife of Greater Manchester. It was chosen after a shortlist of charities was put to a company-wide vote. DF Capital has already kicked off its fundraising efforts and has planned lots of activities for the coming 12 months.
In Kind Direct & corporate partners
In Kind Direct is partnering with corporate partners including Amazon, Essity, P&G, PZ Cussons and Unilever to donate much-needed products such as kettles, drinks, snacks and cleaning essentials to community spaces to help bring people together again as restrictions start to lift. Businesses wishing to work with In Kind Direct on an ongoing or one-off contribution can contact: do*******@in**********.org, and charitable organisations seeking donations, and wider products from In Kind Direct can register via: inkinddirect.org.
Arco & charities
Arco has donated £64k to colleague-chosen charities and organisations to support those hit the hardest by the Coronavirus pandemic. Following its first Coronavirus grant scheme, the company has now donated a total of £106k. Arco is supporting, on both a local and national level, charities and organisations whose work supports the following five areas: mental health and wellbeing, victims of domestic violence, homelessness, foodbanks or those providing food delivery/meal services for vulnerable people, and the care home and hospice sector.
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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.