Corporate Responsibility: Community

Overview

• The lead community cause after a review with colleagues is "to help them support the causes they believe in"
• We have published our CSR track record through new CSR web pages

Investing in the community

• In 2007 we invested £125k in cash and kind in the community (equivalent to over 20% of our profit before tax; £11k of that was in cash)
• We have a matched giving policy; matching up to £375 per colleague per year

Encouraging employee volunteering

• Over 70% of employees volunteer
• That added up to over 700 hours of volunteering in 2007
• Our Liverpool colleagues have taken part in a fun run for charity in Liverpool for the last 6 years
• Colleagues have volunteered for refereeing for young football league; helping out at Mencap youth club nights; manning telephones for disaster fundraising events; taking part in numerous charity runs and many other activities
• Our London colleagues recently took part in a one day volunteering programme with Kids Company

Creating cross company community flagships

• We have created the Social Marketing Network to bring leaders of social change together to learn from each other (for example, Ian Russell, chairman of Remploy, led a discussion on Disability as an Opportunity; Jennie Price, CEO of Sport England, led one on increasing participation in sport)
• The Network also involves putting our intellectual capital on line for anyone to draw on including competitors
• We supported the world premiere of a photographic exhibition on diversity as part of our partnership with international charity Milestones
• One of our colleagues created, pro bono, the logo for the World Swim for Malaria and a series of other logos for use on other promotions to help reduce Malaria