Featured opportunities:

• Charity plea for new van brings advertising opportunity
• Support Buckinghamshire’s Armed Forces Day
• Support a school building project in Kenya
• Call for local businesses to partner with Buckinghamshire Mind

Charity plea for new van brings advertising opportunity

Florence Nightingale Hospice Charity’s furniture van is a familiar sight around Aylesbury Vale as it picks up donated furniture and delivers items that have been bought from the charity’s Furniture Showroom in Chamberlain Road.

The furniture collection and delivery service is an essential income stream for the charity, whose retail operations provide a third of the funding provided to the Hospice by the charity.

“We have had the current van for a long time now,” says Head of Retail, Lily Caswell. “It has started to be unreliable and it has a few mechanical quirks which are manageable at the moment but make life a bit difficult for our delivery team.”

The charity is appealing to companies for donations towards a replacement van at a cost of £22,000.

“If our current van breaks down, we will let customers and donors down, which is not something that we want to do when people are very kindly supporting the charity,” explains Lily. “Any organisation that donates towards the new van will have their logo and company name displayed on it, showing the local community that the company has supported this much-loved local charity and providing free advertising wherever the van is driving around Buckinghamshire.”

If your company would like to support Florence Nightingale Hospice by donating towards a new van for the Furniture Showroom, please contact Corporate Partnerships Manager Emma Carroll on 01296 429975 or emmacarroll@fnhospice.org.uk or find out more online at www.fnhospice.org.uk.

Florence Nightingale Hospice is located at Stoke Mandeville Hospital and provides first class specialist palliative care which is accessible and free of charge to those with a life-limiting illness in Buckinghamshire. The Hospice also provides other services such as 24/7 end-of-life care in the home, Florrie’s Children’s Team support for families, the Day Hospice and Bereavement Support. Florence Nightingale Hospice Charity needs to raise over £750,000 annually to ensure the continued funding of local in-patient and at-home palliative care services, for many more years to come.

Support Buckinghamshire’s Armed Forces Day

The government launched the national Armed Forces Day scheme in 2009. Since then, the Buckinghamshire Lieutenancy, with the support of Buckinghamshire County Council and other stakeholders, has delivered successful family fun day events highlighting the local community's support for Veterans, Serving Personnel, Reservists, Cadets, War Widows, their families and employers.

The aim for 2019 is to deliver another big family friendly fun day event for all, with a particular emphasis on saying thank you to the Armed Forces Family in Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes. The event is funded by sponsorship, donations and income generated on the day itself.

It is an opportunity for businesses across the area to position themselves as a socially responsible organisation that is engaged with the community. As such, there are sponsorship packages for organisations and individuals to take advantage of.

There are various levels of sponsorship available, starting at £250. Every business that donates, even at the lowest level, will have the opportunity to have a stand at Armed Forces Day promoting themselves. Any profit generated will help to fund the next Armed Forces Day event.

For full details of the sponsorship packages available, read the Armed Forces Day sponsorship booklet here >

You can find out more information by emailing info@onestopevents.net or calling 07724 021856.

Support a school building project in Kenya

Buckinghamshire Business First member Duncan McDonald of DIY Framing has been overseeing completion of phase two of his school building project in Kenya – and is looking for sponsorship and donations to ensure the project comes to fruition.

A short film is being created to promote the project and the fundraising efforts. Businesses can sponsor the project for £500 and get their name publicised at the beginning of the film and in the credits. The film itself will help with further fundraising efforts, including to build six more classrooms.

As well as sponsoring the project, people can make individual donations via a Just Giving page.

For more information, email Duncan McDonald at duncan@allaboutframing.com, or visit the project Facebook page and the website at https://www.nandiproject.com.

Call for local businesses to partner with Buckinghamshire Mind

Buckinghamshire Mind is inviting local businesses to work with the mental health charity as their Charity Partner for 2019. As well as raising vital funds to support Buckinghamshire Mind’s local mental health services, Charity Partnership is a vital element of Corporate Social Responsibility, promotes workplace wellbeing, encourages team-building and can result in increased confidence and self-esteem for individual employees.

A great example of the benefits of Charity Partnership is Orange Genie Group. In September 2018, the contractor management company chose Buckinghamshire Mind as their Charity Partner for 2018/19, with staff committing to raising a minimum of £10,000.

To encourage staff fundraising, Orange Genie committed to match funding the first £50 of any fundraising challenges that are undertaken. The entire workforce threw themselves in to the challenge with huge positivity and enthusiasm, scaling mountains, running miles, baking cakes and even painting fingernails in aid of Buckinghamshire Mind. The results were very impressive. To date, they have raised £5,234 with just over 6 months’ fundraising remaining.

Orange Genie Group’s Chief Executive Officer, Graham Fisher, explains why it is important to the organisation to partner with a local charity: “Involvement in the local community is of paramount importance to us and traditionally our CSR management board have selected a charity or worthy cause to support. We believe that helping the local community is not just something we choose to do but is actually an important part of our business. We understand that local businesses and communities are closely linked and that we can have a meaningful impact on communities as a whole. Our objective is to encourage our stakeholders, management and staff to play a significant part in the development of our local communities.”

Orange Genie chose to partner with Buckinghamshire Mind because of the company’s commitment to improve staff and stakeholder wellbeing, which has a particular focus on mental health. As well as raising much needed funds for Buckinghamshire Mind, the partnership aims to promote awareness of the importance of considering mental health in the workplace.

To achieve their fundraising target of £10,000, Orange Genie employees have completed a wide range of challenges and activity, including climbing Scafell Pike, a virtual walk from Land’s End to John o’ Groats, the Burn Series (10k run, 1k kayak, 40k bike ride), baking, beauty treatments and dress down days. These activities have encouraged employees to work together as team as well as helping to improve health and self-esteem.

To discuss the benefits of working with Buckinghamshire Mind as your organisation’s Charity Partner, please contact fundraising@bucksmind.org.uk. Find out more about Buckinghamshire Mind at www.bucksmind.org.uk.