Neil Matthews, Relationship Manager for Pound Gates Chartered Insurance Brokers explains the approach taken by the company to supporting charitable causes both locally and overseas, the benefits the initiatives bring and how other organisations can get involved with their own fundraising activities.

We balance the desire for business success with the needs of the wider communities in which we are active and where we can have an impact.

Locally, we have partnered with Suffolk Community Foundation and together created The Acorn Fund. This is a vehicle that allows us to donate to community and grassroots organisations who provide the greatest impact in the local area. We chose to focus specifically on those involved in health and wellbeing.

Since the fund was established in 2013, we have awarded £41,000 to 31 causes in the Suffolk area. The funds are generated primarily by our own staff throughout the year. Pre-pandemic, this included monthly dress down days, cake sales and the like. These small amounts of money add up remarkably quickly and can have a huge impact on the recipients of the grants. Normally our staff pay a few pounds a month into a social club, and as that couldn’t be used while everyone was social distancing, they unanimously agreed that the money should go to the Acorn Fund. Our staff are involved in all decisions regarding The Acorn Fund; they even vote on which causes to support.

A recent impact analysis carried out by Suffolk Community Foundation suggested our grants have impacted the lives of over 4,000 people. If you’re looking for a vehicle to make an impact in your local community while also creating better engagement with your staff and suppliers, I’d highly recommend considering partnering with your local Community Foundation. There are 47 throughout the UK. You can find out more here.

Supporting Young Sporting Talent

We’re also involved locally with SportsAid, the charity that supports young sportsmen and women who aspire to be our next sporting champions. Typically aged 12 to 18, these athletes face huge challenges, making sacrifices every day to train and compete. Many spend more than £7,000 a year on their sport and most rely entirely on SportsAid and their families financially.  In the East of England there is now an established network of lunch clubs, which are run twice yearly to raise funds for local upcoming talent. The lunches are attended by some of the young athletes, with a sporting personality providing the after lunch speech. We helped to establish and now co-sponsor the Ipswich Sporting Lunch Club. There are opportunities for businesses in the East to either sponsor or take a table at the lunches. If you’re interested in finding out more click here. 

Further afield in Nyiera, Kenya is The Soma Leo Foundation, a charity set up by Pound Gates in 2015 as an extension of other charitable work in Kenya. Through its school, The Soma Leo Academy, the Foundation provides schooling for 200 children, who would otherwise be unlikely to receive a formal education. It’s our mission to help the children who attend the school to be healthy, independent and resilient citizens. We do this by providing high quality teaching, with an effective teacher to pupil ratio, safe and clean facilities, good nourishment and a varied and interesting curriculum.

Again this is a fantastic opportunity for our staff and the local business community to get involved in fundraising. Calendar staples include our annual golf day and charity quiz, which are both attended by local businesses who give generously to support the school.

We also run sporting challenges with our staff. Last year saw a socially distanced steps challenge, where our teams took 13 million steps during January and raised £5,000. In 2019 we ran a rowing challenge, which included involvement from local businesses, and raised over £10,000. The participating teams collectively took enough strokes to row from the port of Felixstowe to Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada!

Through the powerbase we’ve created through our stakeholder group, we are able to leverage these connections for Doing Good, whilst creating positive connections amongst our staff, suppliers and customers. The validation we’ve received over the years about the impact this work has made it extremely rewarding and spurs us on with our efforts.

Photos (top to bottom): Neil Matthews; Kevin Collins, MD of Pound Gates, enjoys a game with the children in Kenya; The Soma Leo Academy.