Leading transport operator FirstGroup’s three year charity partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support, which drew to a close on 31 March, has been nominated for one of the country’s top charitable awards.
Third Sector magazine’s Business Charity Awards 2015 recognise the contribution made by UK companies to charities and social enterprises. The FirstGroup and Macmillan partnership has been nominated in the charity partnership category, along with entries from Boeing, E.On, Keyline and Slimming World. The awards ceremony will be held at The Brewery, Chiswell Street in London, on 19 May.
FirstGroup has given £1.1m in fundraised cash and gift in kind to Macmillan Cancer Support during the three year partnership. Corporate donations combined with employee fundraising enabled the Group to donate £390,170 to Macmillan's financial grant programme, which funded 1,337 grants in areas of the country where FirstGroup rail and bus companies operate. A Macmillan financial grant helps people affected by cancer to purchase essential items like a new washing machine or fridge. , or to pay for unavoidable expenses such as fuel bills. A grant can also be used towards paying for unavoidable rises in expenses, such as higher fuel bills, which can be caused by a patient feeling the cold more as a result of their medical treatment.
As part of the charity partnership FirstGroup adopted the ‘Macmillan at Work’ programme which provides managers with the tools to support employees affected by cancer. 119,000 people of working age are diagnosed with cancer every year in the UK and more than 500,000 others have to juggle their work with looking after someone with cancer. Macmillan's research showed that employers can play a pivotal role in supporting people with cancer and their carers, and so the Group’s campaign addressed specific issues in employee health and wellbeing.
FirstGroup also donated advertising space on trains and buses across the UK during the partnership, worth more than £700,000 to Macmillan over the three year period. Buses and trains featured adverts for the charity’s World’s Biggest Coffee Morning, and Go Sober for October fundraising campaigns, which were successful in encouraging bus and rail passengers to text to donate to Macmillan, and to text to register as event hosts. The charity also used this space to support its flagship Not Alone campaign, which aims to raise awareness of Macmillan’s services amongst local communities across the UK with the aim of ensuring that no one has to face cancer alone.
Katie Smart, FirstGroup’s Corporate Responsibility and Community Manager, said: “We’re delighted by the success of our partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support. Over the last three years, our employees and customers really got behind the partnership and we raised the fantastic sum of £1.1m in funds and gift in kind, to help Macmillan support those affected by cancer. We’re so proud of everything we’ve achieved with Macmillan and are looking forward to our new link with Prostate Cancer UK, beginning this month.”
Sally Hill, Partnership Manager at Macmillan Cancer Support added: “I’m delighted that Macmillan’s partnership with FirstGroup has been recognised by the Third Sector Business Charity Awards. FirstGroup’s support of our financial grants programme has helped us to provide a grant to an additional 1,337 individuals or families faced with the financial impact of a cancer diagnosis, while the donated advertising space has helped raise awareness of our services and helped bring us a step closer to our ambition of ensuring that no one faces cancer alone. I’d like to say thank you to everyone at FirstGroup for their enthusiasm and support over the past three years.”
Prostate Cancer UK is the company’s new UK Charity of Choice partner after a recent employee vote. The new three year partnership between the Group and the charity will support men affected by prostate cancer, and their partners and families, through employee events, collections and promotions.
ENDS
Notes to editors
For more information, please contact Stuart Butchers, Group Head of Media at FirstGroup on 020 7291 0507 or email [email protected]
About Macmillan Cancer Support
When you have cancer, you don’t just worry about what will happen to your body, you worry about what will happen to your life. Whether it’s concerns about who you can talk to, planning for the extra costs or what to do about work, at Macmillan we understand how a cancer diagnosis can take over everything.
That’s why we’re here. We provide support that helps people take back control of their lives. But right now, we can’t reach everyone who needs us. We need your help to make sure that people affected by cancer get the support they need to face the toughest fight of their life. No one should face cancer alone, and with your support no one will.
To get involved, call 0300 1000 200 today. And please remember, we’re here for you too. If you’d like support, information or just to chat, call us free on 0808 808 00 00 (Monday to Friday, 9am–8pm) or visit macmillan.org.uk
About FirstGroup
FirstGroup plc (LSE: FGP.L) is the leading transport operator in the UK and North America. With revenues of more than £6.7 billion in 2013/14 and around 110,000 employees, we transported around 2.5 billion passengers last year. Each of our five divisions is a leader in its field: First Student is the largest provider of student transportation in North America with a fleet of around 49,000 yellow school buses, First Transit is one of the largest providers of outsourced transit management and contracting services in the US, while Greyhound is the only national operator of scheduled intercity coach services across North America. In the UK, FirstGroup is one of Britain's largest bus operators running a fleet of some 6,400 buses, and we are one of the largest operators of passenger rail services in the UK, carrying more than 330 million passengers last year, with experience of running all types of rail network.
Our vision is to provide solutions for an increasingly congested world... keeping people moving and communities prospering.
References
119,000 people of working age are diagnosed with cancer every year in the UK
- Office of National Statistics. Cancer Registration Statistics, England, 2012. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-352128 (Accessed July 2014)
- Welsh Cancer Intelligence and Surveillance Unit. Official Statistics - Trends. http://www.wcisu.wales.nhs.uk/officical-statistics-exel-files-of-trend (Accessed July 2014)
- ISD Scotland. Cancer Incidence in Scotland 2012. http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Cancer/Publications/data-tables.asp?id=1233#1233 (Accessed July 2014)
- Northern Ireland Cancer Registry. Online Statistics. http://www.qub.ac.uk/research-centres/nicr/CancerData/OnlineStatistics/ (Accessed July 2014)
500,000 others have to juggle their work with looking after someone with cancer
- Macmillan Cancer Support/Ipsos MORI. More than a Million: Understanding the UK’s carers of people with cancer. 2011