Corporate Culture volunteers with Kids Company

As part of our recently introduced volunteering policy, employees in Corporate Culture's London office teamed up with Kids Company.

This children's charity offers practical, emotional and educational support to vulnerable inner-city children and young people.

Our team spent the day at a school in Southwark, one of many that Kids Company supports.

In the morning they worked with year one children, using materials collected for recycling to make dinosaurs as part of a national curriculum project.

In the afternoon they worked with year two children and got even more creative. The best models included a spaceship, a robot city, and the Eifel Tower!

Project Manager Clare Marshall, who organised the volunteering, said: "Everyone at Corporate Culture had a fantastic time, and the kids did too. It's great to be able to offer our time to a cause we believe in so much."

We support 11 MILLION Takeover Day

During November 2007, Corporate Culture took part in the first ever national Takeover Day —created by the 11 MILLION campaign. Takeover Day gave young people across England the chance to step into the adult world and take the reins of schools, businesses and even government departments.

Nabila Ali, 18, was invited to work alongside Director of Youth Strategy at Corporate Culture, Ashley Sweetland. Nabila took part in a brainstorming session with the team, accompanied Ashley to the Emerging Leaders Group meeting hosted by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), and met up with other young people involved in the day at the BT Tower.

"I found the day really worthwhile," explained Nabila. "The meetings at Corporate Culture were full of very interesting people and I enjoyed playing a part in them. It was a wonderful experience, and a great opportunity to make my voice heard."

Sir Al Aynsley-Green, Children's Commissioner for England said: "I am delighted that Corporate Culture supported 11 MILLION Takeover Day. It was a great opportunity for us to celebrate the importance of children and young people."

Ashley Sweetland added "we were absolutely delighted to support 11 MILLION and to make our clients and networks aware of the opportunity."

For more information, visit the website.

Clare Marshall’s secondment at BT

Corporate Culture is constantly on the lookout for new ways of working with our clients to deliver mutual benefits and change for good. Recently one of our project managers, Clare Marshall, worked on a nine month secondment at BT in support of the Better World campaign.

Reporting directly to Beth Courtier, BT’s Head of Charity Programmes, Clare was involved in a number of fundraising projects: in addition to lending a hand with annual causes – such as Children in Need and Comic Relief – Clare was responsible for organising activities in support of BT’s main charity partner, ChildLine.

A trek through Africa

Every year, the company runs a trek in support of the children’s charity. In April 2007, BT sent forty people to the mountain kingdom of Lesotho in Africa - the organisation of which took up a good deal of Clare’s time.

As well as finding and insuring volunteers for the trek, she carried out risk assessments for each member of staff, hosted numerous conference calls and supported all forty trekkers throughout their fundraising efforts.

Incredibly, Clare also found the time to take part in the 100 kilometre trek – helping, along with her fellow trekkers, to raise a total of £60,000 for ChildLine.

In parallel with this project, Clare was asked to manage several other main events in BT’s Fundraising calendar…

A walk up the BT Tower

This annual climb up the stairs of the tower is run on a small budget, to ensure the maximum amount of money is donated to the charity. Clare’s main challenge began with finding first aid officers to man every other floor of the tower, along with people to monitor the time.

She then recruited 200 volunteers to climb the tower, who between them raised over £25,000. Clare also ran BT’s Valentines Lunch, at which 25 couples enjoyed a romantic time at the top of the tower – raising over £5,000 in the process!

Having had such a variety of challenges to rise to, Clare was delighted with her time with BT: “Working with a large corporate organisation has been a very valuable learning experience. The role was unbelievably varied, and I have made great contacts throughout BT as result. I would really recommend other people try similar secondments; it gives you a refreshing perspective on a different environment, and a rare insight into the different challenges faced by our clients.”