10 great partnerships providing fundraising & support for good causes
Melanie May | 14 December 2023 | News
From a new partnership between Amazon and the International Organization for Migration, MBNA’s 20 years of support for Breast Cancer Now and PureGym’s £1mn for BHF, to bp supporting Future Woodlands and The Prince’s Trust, and M&S’s 70mn meals donated through Neighbourly. Read on for the details.
Amazon signs global disaster relief agreement with International Organization for Migration
For the past two years, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and Amazon have partnered on disaster preparedness, emergency relief, and capacity building. Now, the two have signed an agreement to support vulnerable communities across the world through product donations, volunteering, and disaster relief response and preparedness. In addition to Amazon’s inventory, infrastructure, and technology, which can be used to provide quick help to communities impacted by disasters, this agreement allows Amazon and IOM to support migrants through upskilling and employment opportunities.
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Currently, Amazon’s Welcome Door program offers resources and support – such as a citizenship assistance portal, free legal support, and mentorship – for refugee and humanitarian-based immigrant employees and the companies that welcome them. Through this partnership, IOM will provide its expertise in this domain to explore avenues of collaboration in several areas, including refugee integration, professional upskilling, and promotion of equal and inclusive recruitment practices.
MBNA celebrates 20 years of supporting Breast Cancer Now
MBNA has reached a significant milestone in its support for the research and support charity Breast Cancer Now, celebrating its 20th year.
MBNA became a partner of Breast Cancer Now in 2003 with the launch of a Breast Cancer Now Credit Card, where MBNA donates up to £40 to the charity upon first use of the card (within 90 days of opening an account), plus £2 for every year a customer uses their card and 25p for every £100 spent by customers on card purchases. The partnership has since raised over £2.5 million for the charity over 20 years – equivalent to keeping the Breast Cancer Now Toby Robins Research Centre open for almost 100 days.
Original Factory Shop raises £65,000 for local causes
The Original Factory Shop has raised £65,000 for local charities in 2023. In May 2021, colleagues at each of its 190+ stores asked their local community which charity they should back and following a vote by the community in which each store is based, it has now raised money for 190+ individual local charities.
Funding comes from a variety of sources and includes customer donations in stores charity boxes, with donations also made to the store’s charity fund when a customer buys a carrier bag or through the TOFS Club+. The charity partners include Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire Air Ambulance, The Big Cat Sanctuary in Ashford and Dunbar Against Litter.
Cancer Research UK partners with Retail Trust to provide shop staff & volunteers with free wellbeing support
Cancer Research UK has started working with the Retail Trust to support the wellbeing of the thousands of volunteers and staff members at its 550+ UK shops.
The new partnership will give Cancer Research UK’s 2,000 shop workers and 11,000 volunteers across the country access to personalised support from the Retail Trust. This includes counselling and cognitive behavioural therapy for themselves or under-18s in their care, as well as exclusive discounts and rewards.
Vueling doubles donations to Save the Children
Vueling is doubling contribution to Save the Children made by clients between 28 November and 31 December to contribute towards solidarity projects and help families affected by humanitarian crisis. In addition, the company will also double the contributions made by its professional team when booking a flight during the same period of time.
Since July 2022, airline customers have been able to make a contribution of between £1 and £3 to Save the Children during in-flight sales. Vueling has donated more than £1,140,000 to the global charity in a collaboration running since 2015 which supports babies, pregnant women and nursing mothers with basic needs.
PureGym raises £1 million for British Heart Foundation
PureGym has raised £1 million for the British Heart Foundation (BHF) to fund lifesaving research into heart and circulatory diseases. PureGym and the BHF formed the partnership in 2022 to help raise funds and to educate people on how to prevent, treat and manage their heart conditions.
The gym chain has encouraged staff and members alike to take part in fundraising activities like the Hearts & Minds Relay. So far, the BHF has helped PureGym set up Recycle for Research donation boxes in their 370+ clubs, offer in-gym free blood pressure checks to members, and to register the defibrillators located in all of its gyms to The Circuit: the national defibrillator network. This is the largest number of defibrillators uploaded to The Circuit by a gym.
Manchester City’s City in the Community announces Nissan as first Official Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Partner
Manchester City’s Official Automotive Partner, Nissan will support all of City in the Community’s disability and LGBTQ+ projects for two years. The announcement expands on Nissan’s current support of City in the Community that began in 2021. Since then, Nissan has been integral to the growth of the City in the Community’s One City Disability programme, including the support of Powerchair Football sessions by purchasing eight new chairs for young people to enjoy.
City in the Community and Nissan have collaborated on other campaigns and events since 2021 – including the Nissan Possibilities Project, which helps to create more opportunities for people from underrepresented communities, and City in the Community’s Blue Run fundraiser. To celebrate the launch of the new partnership, City in the Community released a video featuring Manchester City’s Jack Grealish, showcasing a surprise meeting with One City Disability participant and super fan Lucas.
Future Woodlands Scotland and bp sign contract for £10mn Urban Forestry Programme
Future Woodlands Scotland has announced a partnership with bp to help deliver greener cities, towns, and urban areas through a new urban forestry programme. The charity has signed a contract with bp, whereby the energy major intends to commit funding of a total of £10million to the programme as part of the development of its Scottish offshore windfarm, Morven, jointly developed with EnBW.
A key ambition of the programme is to use new and emerging technologies to target the urban areas where creating greenspace will be of the most benefit to people. The funding has enabled the charity to recruit its first urban forestry manager who will lead the delivery of the urban forestry programme, which it expects to launch in mid-2024.
Partnership between bp and The Prince’s Trust will help disadvantaged young people get into work
bp has entered into a partnership with The Prince’s Trust that will help up to 50 disadvantaged young people get into paid work across four programmes in the next year. A comprehensive ‘Get into Retail’ programme, designed by bp and The Prince’s Trust, will give participants valuable work experience, complemented by employability training.
The partnership kicked off in May 2023 with an initial cohort of seven young people, put forward by The Prince’s Trust, taking part in the ‘Get into Retail’ programme in the Milton Keynes area. The second cohort completed their work experience in November 2023 around south London. To date 11 of the 14 participants have secured permanent employment with bp. The next two ‘Get into Retail’ programmes will run in North London in January and in Kent in March 2024.
M&S Food donates over 70 million meals to local good causes through Neighbourly
Marks & Spencer has now donated 70 million meals to local charities with longstanding food redistribution partner Neighbourly. Since the launch of the surplus partnership in 2015, M&S has been working with Neighbourly to redistribute surplus food from store, which is too good to waste, to more than 3,000 local charities and community organisations. To date, the partnership has supported over 4.5 million individuals, with meal donations supporting families in need, young people and those with disabilities.
The partnership has prevented over 30,000 tonnes of good quality food from going to waste. This contributes to M&S’s target of 100% of edible surplus food to be redistributed by 2025, as part of its ‘Plan A’ roadmap to net zero. This year, the partnership has seen over 13 million meals donated – the highest in the partnership to date. M&S is donating more in the weeks leading up to Christmas; over 400,000 meals were donated in the first week of December – an increase of 100,000 from last year.
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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.