Cancer Research UK – our new charity of choice
The charity of
choice is our most high profile charity partnership. Chosen by our
employees, the partnership is valued at around £250,000 a year. In
March 2010, over 40 per cent of our workforce participated in a postal
and online vote, choosing Cancer Research UK as our next charity of
choice. In total, 16,389 votes were received and for each vote cast we
donated £1 to that short-listed charity – so even if it didn’t win,
each charity benefited.
Our target is to raise £1m for Cancer Research
UK by April 2012 and increase awareness of the work they do. We’ll
achieve this through fundraising, sponsorship, gifts in kind, health
awareness events and employee volunteering.
NSPCC partnership draws to a close
Our
two-year charity of choice partnership with the NSPCC ended in March
2010. We raised £450,000 for the charity – money that can now be used
to pay for at least 10 child protection experts who will answer calls
and deliver support through the NSPCC Helpline for a whole year.
Getting our people involved
By
making our charitable giving schemes available to everyone at Network
Rail we hope our people will support charities and the communities in
which they work. We offer volunteer leave, matched giving and Give As
You Earn.
Volunteer leave
We offer all employees up to five days
volunteer leave a year to take part in volunteering activities that
align to our charitable giving objectives. In 2009/10, 144 people took
volunteer leave, providing a total of 233 days to charitable
organisations and trusts. We want to encourage more employees to take
volunteer leave. By supporting 30 new regional charities we’ll be
promoting more opportunities to volunteer and get involved in local
communities over the coming year.
Matched giving
We support our people in fundraising for causes they feel passionate
about and each year we match our employees’ fundraising totals (up to a
Company-wide total of £100,000 per year) and donate it to our charity
of choice. Between 2009 and 2010, 196 employees took part in our
matched giving scheme – an increase from the previous year when 151
people participated.
Give As You Earn (GAYE)
In 2009/10, 885 people took part in our GAYE scheme, giving a total
of £244,274 of tax-free direct donations to charity through their
payroll. This year, with the help of the fundraising organisation
Payroll Giving in Action, we’ll be increasing the promotion of the
scheme with the aim to raise as much money as possible for charities
that are important to our employees.