Charity begins at home, but when you’re a business, and want to do good in your local community, where do you find what is most needed on your doorstep?

Support A Local Charity is one such initiative working hard to support corporate responsibility. It works just like a dating agency to find a compatible partner, but of course, it’s business, and the point is to align a business with a social cause. 

This initiative was launched as part of Gloucestershire’s Local Business Charity 2018 awards, sponsored by risk strategy and commercial insurance consultants Jelf and Ageas. 

Requests for help can include anything from looking for new trustees to help with fundraising, volunteering, accounts, marketing, PR, social media, HR etc. Businesses are asked to submit a form stating what they are willing to offer; from sharing the firm’s core skills, to supporting the charity for a year, or more general fundraising and volunteering support. 

Forms to support or register a charity can be downloaded from www.localbusinesscharityawards.co.uk. Upon joining, charities and firms can browse the register until they see a potential match, at which point the magic happens.

This is how IT firm, Cyber Security Associates, met women’s charity, Gloucestershire Bundles. Madeline Howard, of Cyber Security Associates said: “We loved the idea of ‘Support A Local Charity’ and were delighted to receive a call, asking for help with GDPR compliance from this charity.” 

Stacey Brayshaw, trustee of Gloucestershire Bundles added: “We are so grateful, without this initiative and finding a match, we would have spent vast amounts of money on becoming compliant.”