New Poundland Foundation commits to grants of £2.5m over two years
Howard Lake | 28 May 2021 | News
Discount retailer Poundland has announced its new charitable foundation, under which all its charity fundraising and donations activity will be delivered.
The Poundland Foundation has received approval from the Charity Commission for England and Wales.
Charity partnerships
The Poundland Foundation will continue to support Poundland’s existing charity partnership with Make-A-Wish® UK, Tommy’s and Whizz-Kidz with a £2.5 million commitment over the next two years.
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£825,000 in grants available
In addition the Foundation is offering £825,000 in grants over the next 12 months to community projects, starting with sports kits for children.
This focus is based in part on Sport England’s research which has shown that the proportion of children taking part in physical activity for an hour or more dropped from 47% to 19% during the first lockdown.
Applications for the first grant window will open at 9am on Tuesday 1 June. There are 250 grants of up to £750 each available to provide kits or equipment for local children’s sports team. Applications to the Poundland Foundation will be considered for any kind of team sport – from football to netball, hockey to volleyball.
At the launch of the charitable foundation Poundland managing director Barry Williams thanked staff and customers for all their charity fundraising efforts to date.
He added: “Poundland has got a strong tradition of supporting good causes, nationally and locally, and I want to thank all our colleagues and customers for all their fundraising efforts.”
He added: “As a sports fan and a dad with sports-mad kids, I’m very excited about helping kids get and stay active – whatever the sport.”
Funding for the foundation
Money for the foundation will come from:
- in-store fundraising
- carrier bag donations
- and the partnership with Pennies, the charity that collects micro-donations through chip and pin machines.
Over the past four years Poundland, which now has a network of over 850 stores in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, has raised over £4.5m for charities and community causes.
Watch the Poundland Foundation
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.