At a time when corporate Britain has taken a bit of a bashing, especially after the Banks, Energy companies and Newspapers have been hauled up before the Commons select committee's the consumer could be forgiven for thinking that business is all bad and self centred and in some cases they might be correct.
The figures speak for themselves, corporate giving has fallen by an estimated 27% over the last two years according to a new report by the Directory of Social Change. Companies accounted for only 2% of all UK giving in a period covered by the report. This does of course not take into account the paid time given to staff by many companies for voluntary and charitable work.
It is not surprising therefore that this trend has been noticed by consumers where according to a survey commissioned by fundraising platform Give as You Live, 87% of consumers think retailers don't do enough to support good causes. There are though exceptions to the rule.
Simply Sports launched a Loyalty Card charity scheme on the 10/10/2010 and since then have donated 1% of all monies spent by our card holders to a selection of charities. For December this year we are doubling that donation to 2%.
The current six permanent charities are Breast Cancer Care, The Alzheimer's Society, Macmillan Cancer Support, Help For Heroes, The Orpheus Centre in Godstone and the Children's Trust in Tadworth. As well as these six good causes we also have a Guest Charity which changes every 3 months. So far these have included, Ovarian Cancer Action, Working Hands, Tommy's, Disability Challengers, Metro and Enable Ethiopia.
If you help run a charity or raise funds for one please let us know and we may be able to make your charity our Guest charity for a period of three months.
In the meantime we at Simply Sports will continue to do our little bit and would ask this, what would happen if every company in the UK donated 1% of its turn over to charity?
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