FirstGroup and Action for Children partnership reaches £1 million target early
Howard Lake | 14 August 2019 | News
Children’s charity Action for Children and transport group FirstGroup have reached their £1 million partnership target after just one year, two years ahead of target.
The funding provides mental health support for vulnerable and disadvantaged children across the UK.
Since the partnership began in April 2018 FirstGroup colleagues cycled, skipped, baked and even sky dived to fundraise for Action for Children. The total raised was boosted by corporate donations and the commercial value of gift in kind advertising space on FirstGroup’s bus and rail networks.
First Group staff pose in an Action for Children photoframe
FirstGroup’s fundraising has enabled the charity to fund a mental health practitioner working directly with families at Action for Children’s services. Since the partnership launched in April 2018, over 240 hours’ worth of intervention programmes have helped families. In addition 139 Action for Children staff have received training to help those children and families they see struggling with mental health problems.
Record breaker
GWR- Continuous Improvement Manager Simon Ashton from Great Western Railway attempts to break the world record for 76,196 jumps over a skipping rope in 12 hours, at Plymouth Station in Devon. 20/10/2018
One FirstGroup staff member even broke a world record while fundraising for Action for Children! GWR employee Simon Ashton hosted a Skipathon at Plymouth Station last October, breaking the record for the most number of skips in 12 hours (79,023) and raising over £1,500 at the same time.
Matthew Gregory, Chief Executive, FirstGroup, said:
“FirstGroup is incredibly pleased to support Action for Children in helping young people on their journey to better mental health. We are really proud that thanks to the efforts of FirstGroup employees and the impact of the gifts in kind we have donated, we have already reached a partnership value in excess of £1m and we look forward to supporting Action for Children through a further two years of our partnership.”
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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.