Geared for Giving response to the Giving White Paper

Whilst the Giving White Paper clearly has excellent intentions, the Geared for Giving campaign hopes that it will learn from our success in the area of giving to charity via pay and not be tempted to reinvent the wheel.

To really make giving via pay a success you need to engage with the employers and the employees in a really meaningful and relevant way. That requires contact in the boardroom and on the shop floor on a consistent and creative basis and no amount of reviewing in Government offices will get round this basic fact.

The Geared for Giving campaign was set up three years ago by Workplace Giving UK and headed up by Duncan Bannatyne, with the aim of boosting awareness of Workplace Giving. It was a campaign born out of frustration with a series of previous, failed attempts to boost awareness launched by previous Governments.

This campaign, funded by Workplace Giving UK on a minimum budget of £100,000 over the past three years, has managed to generate donations totalling over £2.3 million pledged for 2,870 different charities by those who are now able to give easily through the scheme. (either from new employer schemes or those that have been re-launched in this period). We also estimate that a further £500,000 has been pledged by employers who are enhancing their employee’s choice of charity. The number of new employees with access to the scheme has so far reached over 1.3 million and is growing on a monthly basis.

Whilst we welcome the suggestion of a Platinum Award to celebrate the businesses and their employees who excel in this field, we would hope that any SME focus would take note of why the previous Government campaign failed to engage this type of business.

We hope that any campaign focuses and learns from a wide range of ‘good’ employer case studies with a focus on the younger workforce so that we can attract young people to give via pay, who might then continue donating in this way throughout their careers.

Finally we would encourage every Minister and MP to lead by example and pledge to make use of their own Workplace Giving scheme.

For more information contact us now.

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Posted on Monday, May 23rd, 2011 by GforG Admin and is filed under
Campaign News.