7 ways businesses are supporting charities: from cycle challenges to cupcake days

Melanie May | 11 November 2020 | News

• Tagged with:
• corporate
• corporate fundraising

Poundland has teamed up with Pennies to support its three charity partners, while the annual Tour de Law has raised its biggest total ever, and Santander is celebrating raising over £1m for dementia charities – and more corporate fundraising news.

Poundland, Make-A-Wish UK®, Tommy’s & Whizz-Kidz

Make-A-Wish UK®, Tommy’s and Whizz-Kidz are to benefit from a new initiative in Poundland stores. The three have been Poundland charity partners since 2017, with £3.7m raised over that period and a target of £2.5m more in the next two years. Poundland has now teamed up with fintech charity Pennies to collect micro-donations through a “digital charity box” using chip and pin machines. Poundland customers spending more than £3 will be invited to donate 25p when paying by chip and pin. 90% of donations will be divided equally between Make-A-Wish, Tommy’s and Whizz-Kidz, with 10% going to the Pennies Foundation.
 
 

Tour de Law & Breast Cancer Now

From Monday 12 October to Sunday 18 October, barristers and solicitors from across the UK took part in the annual charity cycle challenge, Tour de Law, with 50 teams of 10 cyclists raising a record £207,364 for Breast Cancer Now. Over 400 legal professionals from 32 businesses across the UK participated in this year’s event, with Jones Day was announced as the Tour de Law: Cycle Your Way 2020 Champion, raising £21,050 and cycling 7,819km.
 

Barclays & Samaritans

Barclays has announced a new three-year partnership with Samaritans. The partnership is part of Barclays’ £100m Covid-19 Community Aid Package, which the bank launched in April in response to the pandemic. Barclays will support Samaritans’ response to Coronavirus, helping the charity to be there for those most at risk, both now and in the future. The strategic partnership will see Barclays help grow and expand Samaritans’ emotional support service, through a range of new and existing programmes of work including new digital and volunteering initiatives. Barclays staff will have the opportunity to volunteer with Samaritans as part of the partnership, either by providing emotional support as listening volunteers or by contributing as support volunteers.
 

Santander, Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer Scotland

Santander UK employees have raised more than £1 million for the company’s national charity partners Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer Scotland by taking part in fundraising events such as Memory Walk, Cupcake Day, It’s a Knockout and Elf Day since the partnership began in 2019. This summer alone, around 460 employees raised over £120,000 by completing their own Memory Walks including a £50,000 matched funded by the Santander Foundation. Memory Walk is also sponsored by Santander UK and saw company Ambassador Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill get involved by making a warm-up video for participants to mark World Alzheimer’s Day in September. One employee, Baksinder Chima, a Governance and Control Manager for Santander UK raised over £3,700 for the charity with her brothers (pictured above and main image).
 
 

Jane, #HealthPlaySpecialist at Teddy Bear Hospital, uses teddies to show children what’s going to happen at hospital. This, along with isolation packs made up of Boost Box items, make treatment less scary. “The truth is, we’d be lost without Starlight & their amazing resources.” pic.twitter.com/5FhPrbvnmX

— Starlight (@starlight_uk) July 29, 2020

Barclays & Starlight

Barclays has donated £100,000 to help support seriously ill children from low and moderate income families in hospitals around the country. The money donated to Starlight will be shared amongst 100 hospitals that do not have budget for play and distraction services for children receiving treatment. Each hospital will receive Starlight Boost Boxes and Distraction Boxes, which include toys, puzzles and Nintendo gaming bundles with a value of £1,000 to entertain, comfort and distract children from often invasive and stressful treatments. It is hoped that through Barclays’ funding, the boxes will support 100,000 children in the UK over the next six months. The donation will enable Starlight for the first time, to directly approach hospitals that don’t have budget to fund play and aren’t aware of the free support that the charity provides.
 
 

We LOVE our official t-shirt 😍

It was designed by our pals at @asda, with the help of @_TheGarage, a project supported by #ChildrenInNeed 🙌

The amazing @UnaHealy met some of the youngsters who helped design it in a virtual project visit 💛 pic.twitter.com/guwKAQXs8X

— BBC Children in Need (@BBCCiN) November 5, 2020

Asda & BBC Children in Need

BBC Children in Need and Asda have launched their 2020 fundraising campaign. This year, money raised by Asda will help to fund BBC Children in Need’s Emergency Essentials programme, which supports disadvantaged children and young people and their families who are living with severe poverty, and provides them with basic, everyday items such as a bed to sleep in, a cooker to give them a hot meal, clothing and other items and services critical to their wellbeing. Money donated through in-store fundraising or by buying merchandise such as Pudsey clothing, Pudsey ears or the Official BBC Children in Need t-shirt, will go towards providing crucial items to children and young people across the UK who need them most.
 

Tour de France & Cure Leukaemia

Cure Leukaemia has been named as the first ever Official Charity Partner of the Tour de France in the UK. This partnership means that Cure Leukaemia’s major cycling event, The Tour 21,which will see amateur cyclists take on all 21 stages of the Tour de France route one week ahead of the professional event in 2021, 2022 and 2023, will be the only charity event of its kind with an official partnership with the Tour de France in the UK. The Tour 21, which will take place from Saturday 19 June – Sunday 11 July 2021, will see a team of 25 amateur cyclists led by former footballer, blood cancer survivor and Cure Leukaemia Patron Geoff Thomas taking on all 21 stages of the Tour de France with the aim of raising £1,000,000 for Cure Leukaemia. This partnership is the legacy of Geoff Thomas’ cycling achievements since his diagnosis with chronic myeloid leukaemia in 2003, just months after finishing his professional football career.
 

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.