Our fundraising, volunteering and charitable initiatives for 2022

Our fundraising, volunteering and charitable initiatives for 2022

In this week’s Leading the Way blog, we share some of the outcomes of our charitable commitments from the last year and preview our planned approach to worthy causes in 2022.

Bristow & Sutor has a long history of supporting campaigns and causes that make a positive impact on the communities we engage with. This includes supporting Talk Money Week, the annual financial wellbeing promotion held by MAPS (Money and Pensions Service) and Steps for StepChange, raising funds and awareness during Debt Awareness Week (DAW). Other charitable causes we have donated to in recent times include the Trussell Trust, Stop Domestic Abuse and AdviceUK.

Last year, we announced The Money Charity as our new charity partner and we are delighted to see our support and guidance has begun to result in positive outcomes. Our commitment to fundraising and

An update on recent successes

At the IRRV Annual Conference in Telford last October, we invited our charity partner, The Money Charity, to exhibit alongside Bristow & Sutor. As a result, we obtained 53 nominations from individuals to help support local community projects, ranging from education and children’s settings to adult settings and large housing associations.

We are pleased to reveal that these nominations have now converted into four Financial Wellbeing workshops delivered by The Money Charity to 75 young people with subjects including Planning & Budgeting, Covid & My Money, Saving, Credit, Banking, Tax & Payslips and Housing. We’re excited to share that with the support of our funding, 14 more sessions have been scheduled which means over 300 young people will have received Financial Education training. Feedback from one school that benefitted from these sessions shows an average rating of 4.5 out of 5, with all participants stating they would recommend attending future events to others.

Three Adult Workshops comprising 24 participants have also taken place on the back of these nominations, with a further five already scheduled for later this year.  Subjects in these sessions included General Financial Wellbeing and The Psychology of Money. An average session rating of 4.5 out of 5 was achieved again, with 93% of participants stating they would recommend the session to others and three-quarters interested in receiving more sessions in the future.

Some of the direct feedback we have had includes:

“The facilitator was very knowledgeable, friendly and adapted to the questions with grace, thank you.”

“I thought I was pretty savvy but I now see I need to explore my tendency to spend more when I'm happy”

“One of the most useful things that I have ever come across, thank you so much. It's put a lot of worries to rest now that I understand money better!”

The power of three

The Bristow & Sutor Group comprises of Debt Recovery Plus (DRP), Credit Style and Bristow & Sutor. There are many advantages to being part of a collective group of businesses, including the combined efforts we can make towards charitable causes. A payroll giving scheme, for example, allows colleagues across a large organisation or group to donate a small amount every month directly from their salary.  The Bristow & Sutor Group has recently connected with Pennies from Heaven to offer 50p donations per contributing employee. This strength in numbers style of approach is an excellent way to offer support, as individually we will not miss the pence allocated, but collectively this will add up to a significant ongoing contribution. Employees will be able to sign up to this scheme shortly and the first donation is set to come out in March’s pay.

Future planning

Over the next six months, Bristow & Sutor have several initiatives planned to both maintain our existing charitable pledges and expand our fundraising and volunteering commitment, performance and outcomes. Volunteering week takes place in June and we are already seeing significant interest from members of staff, keen to show support to our charity partners and also to raise awareness for causes close to their hearts.

As well as taking part in existing and established fundraising events, we aim to increase the number of unique activities we produce ourselves too, with Easter and Summer themed campaigns currently in the works! As a business, we have communicated at length about the wellbeing of our staff and the people we engage with too, so the positive benefits of exercise, fresh air and enjoying outdoor surroundings is an activity we are keen to keep promoting and sharing. This includes our planned run at the forthcoming IRRV Spring Conference in Leeds.

Removing taboos around discussing money is an ongoing societal need and true support must go beyond making financial contributions. Whilst investment and fundraising remain essential, continuous communications and awareness-raising activities that successfully direct people to the support they need is priceless.

Bristow & Sutor commits to encouraging others to take part in fundraising, volunteering and charitable initiatives, ensuring this remains a prevalent part of our approach to being Cool, Calm and Collected.