J Sainsbury has donated £34m of sports equipment to UK schools, the supermarket group said. Over the two years that Sainsbury has run its Active Kids programme, the retailer has donated sports equipment, kit and coaching to 26,000 primary, secondary, nursery, and special needs schools.
Requests for equipment have been so many that Sainsbury’s has set up a 220,000 sq ft warehouse in Manchester to accommodate demand.
Oxfam has formed an alliance with corporate donors to fund its rapid response to global disasters. Oxfam 365 Alliance will allow a rapid response team of aid workers to be dispatched to anywhere in the world as soon as a disaster takes place.
Oxfam aims to raise £7.9m, and Aviva as well as Vodafone are its first donors. For a company to become a corporate sponsor in the alliance, it has to commit between £500,000 and £1m over three years. Barbara Stocking, Oxfam director, described the alliance as the “first time Oxfam has ever had such a substantial and strategic involvement with corporate donors”. Separately, the UN Foundation and the Vodafone Group Foundation have pledged $2m to Télécoms Sans Frontières (TSF) over a five-year period.
The Number (UK), which is behind 118 118, will give its corporate donation to the Child Protection helpline. The helpline, which is run by the NSPCC, will receive £118,118 in the first year of the partnership. The NSPCC is The Number’s sole charity and the partnership aims to yield over £500,000 over five years.
B&Q China is to establish a Youth Justice Project in China. B&Q China and its parent company Kingfisher will work in partnership with Save the Children to set up the programme in Jinxing in the Yunnan Province. The project will help vulnerable children and young people to avoid crime and it will also protect young offenders from inappropriate punishments. The programme aims to give young people the chance to re-build their lives. B&Q staff using materials from the store built the Community Activity Centre. Kingfisher is contributing to the funding of the project.
Contact; Gwen Wright, Kingfisher 020 7372 8008
Deloitte commits
Deloitte said it will commit up to £1.7m to develop disability sports. The business consultancy firm will donate the money over six years and provide individual bursaries to high-potential athletes through partnering with SportsAid.
The programme will also help talented people to be identified at community level and a new Disability Sports Institute will be established. The British Paralympic Association (BPA) will run the institute.
Prudential is funding environmental charity BTCV for another two years. The funding will be through PRUPIM, Prudential’s real estate investment management arm, and will be used to support Spring into Action, the charity’s annual volunteer recruitment programme. The programme encourages people to look after their local environment. The donations will also be used to run the Prudential Grass Roots Small Grants Programme for local community groups. This programme will be run by BTCV and will support environmental projects around shopping centres and business parks.
KPMG and Help the Hospices are aiming to raise £400,000 in one year. KPMG has made Help the Hospices it’s staff-selected charity partner. The two organisations have formed a partnership, which is called KPMG Caring for Communities: Help Your Local Hospice. Each of KPMG’s 22 offices throughout the UK will be twinned with a hospice in its area. The partnership will involve a number of local as well as national fundraising and volunteer activities. It is also aiming to raise £100,000 through payroll giving with KPMG matching employee contributions pound for pound.
Coca-Cola said it aims to donate $500,000 to humanitarian causes in the Middle East. The funds will be made through the American Red Cross to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and will be used to aid vulnerable communities in the Middle East and to address the crisis caused by the ongoing conflict.
The Levi Strauss Foundation has awarded $75,000 to a microfinance provider. Opportunity International will use the funds to expand its initiatives in the Philippines.
The organisation offers poor entrepreneurs in the developing world training, support and “micro” business loans as well as financial savings advice and life insurance.
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