Words by Abi Scaife
The Corporate Cause section in the Smiley Charity Film Awards is a chance for businesses to demonstrate how they’re giving back. It’s a hugely important and impactful category, allowing us to celebrate their partnerships with charities and causes that benefit our world.
Before the Smiley Charity Film Awards ceremony in March, we took some time to chat with Grant Clemence, Chair, QBE Foundation, QBE European Operation, about QBE Insurance Group’s collaboration with Action Tutoring.
The QBE Foundation has an ongoing Community Partnership with Action Tutoring, a charity dedicated to improving the future of our children through education. With QBE’s generous support, Action Tutoring will be able to extend its help to even more disadvantaged children across the UK.
QBE is embarking on a different path from traditional corporate philanthropy. At the point government funding is about to end, QBE decided to step in with considerable financial support to allow Action Tutoring to achieve specific outcomes that we both believe will dramatically improve the prospects for many underprivileged children. The money we provide is geared to achieving measurable progress in tackling the education attainment gap. Through our efforts with like-minded charities, such as Action Tutoring, we focus on creating strong, resilient, and inclusive communities that make a lasting difference to people’s lives and give them a chance to achieve their ambitions.
There [are] big and ever-growing needs in society, particularly with the pandemic having such an impact on areas like education (attainment gap) and poverty (cost-of-living crisis). Charities do brilliant work, but they cannot do it alone (limited time and resources), so businesses supporting them can be the difference that makes the difference in their ability to carry out important and needed work.
If charities and businesses work in silos, change cannot be created. They both bring different perspectives, resources and approaches to a problem or need - which when combined - can be transformational for society/groups in need.
Providing volunteering hours/days to colleagues within the business in order to support charities. This especially makes a big difference to organisations working with disadvantaged children and young people and marginalised communities. Colleagues bring a wealth of insight, experience and expertise to children/young people - which they might not have access to in their everyday lives - so they're able to offer inspiration and aspiration to the future generation ('you can't be what you can't see').
Funding/fundraising is absolutely crucial to charities. Funding can be the difference in a charity's ability to reach new/more beneficiaries, grow their work to new areas, create an important role in the org (that could be game-changing for their delivery) or carry out important evaluations to better support the people they serve.
You can see QBE and Action Tutoring’s entry on the Smiley Charity Film Awards website. To learn more about QBE and the QBE Foundation, follow this link to their website. To learn more about Action Tutoring, follow this link.
At Smiley Movement, we like to elevate the work of charities across the world. Here are three charities whose causes align with the themes in this article.
Create. Create is the UK's leading charity empowering lives, reducing isolation and enhancing wellbeing through the creative arts. Support them here.
Save The Children UK. Save the Children is a UK charity for children that works in over 100 countries to make sure children are fed, learning and treated fairly. Learn more here.
Barnardo’s. This is a children's charity that protects and supports children and young people in the UK who need them. Find out more here.
This article aligns with the UN SDGs Quality Education and Partnerships for the Goals.
