FACTFILE
CHARITY FOCUS
“ That’ s one reason why I am particularly pleased to support the initiatives of the Hubb Foundation which works tirelessly to raise the aspirations of children in Stokeon-Trent. Nothing would please me more if some of those children one day came to work for JCB.”
For the Hubb Foundation, working with businesses is an important key to growing its impact within the community, and is seen as beneficial to both sides. For example, working with JCB enables its apprentices to grow in confidence and understand that corporate responsibility stretches beyond the office.
Many of the company’ s apprentices hail from the city and each JCB Hubb Holiday they run sessions with youngsters to ignite their interest in engineering and business careers- becoming role models for the next generation.
Collaborating with business has been pivotal to The Hubb Foundation since its inception. Set up by the founder of online anti-fraud business Synectics Solutions and current owner of Port Vale Football Club, Carol Shanahan, it began life as a smaller scale holiday care and food poverty provider for families in the north of the city.
The charity’ s Chief Operating Officer is Adam Yates, a former Port Vale footballer who was recruited by Carol after he sustained a career-ending injury in 2017. Under his stewardship the organisation has grown immeasurably from being part of the Port Vale Foundation’ s community support network to one of the city’ s biggest independent charities whose innovative work to alleviate poverty and disadvantage in the city spans all ages.
Adam explained:“ Working with businesses like JCB has opened up many new avenues that make a real difference to local young people. We cannot overemphasise the importance of quality, targeted holiday care. Put simply our PhD research shows that children who have enriching school holidays – and nutritious food – have better school attendance and better educational outcomes.
“ Our work also goes far beyond the traditional holiday club care concept – it opens up career avenues and introduces children and young people to opportunities that may never occur to them to be viable employment routes.
“ For example, JCB also works closely with Newcastle-under-Lyme’ s New Vic Theatre and the three of us have collaborated to take local actors and theatre to the heart of disadvantaged communities like Bentilee and Chell.
“ Many local children have never seen professional theatre yet census figures show 3.4 % of the city work in arts related jobs. By working with The New Vic and organisations like the Mitchell Arts Centre we are sowing those seeds in young people that this could be a career path and embedding aspirations.”
“ Similarly, we work with organisations like The Spark Group to introduce young people to careers in construction and Spark to your Success to give youngsters a taste of media and podcasting professions, alongside providing courses that take young people through qualifications for hospitality and retail work,” he added.
The Hubb’ s central premise of raising young people’ s aspirations is one that resonates with many of its supporters who are passionate about firing that ambition in the next generation.
Among its long-standing business allies are KMF Group, the GMB Union, Tunstallbased Rebus Training, as well as trustees with industry and professional services backgrounds to help drive further growth.
Added Adam:“ Our work with JCB will make a huge difference to many young people’ s life chances and the more support we get from businesses the more projects we can implement to influence those positive educational outcomes.”
To find out more about supporting The Hubb Foundation’ s work visit https:// www. thehubbfoundation. com
FACTFILE
Businesses that invest in corporate philanthropy reap the benefits.
According to research from the Charities Aid Foundation( CAF) businesses that invest in charitable causes foster greater employee pride and boost morale.
54 % of all UK employees report that working for an employer supporting charities increases their sense of pride in working there.
57 % of younger employees( ages 25 – 34) say their company’ s philanthropic activities actively increase their longterm loyalty to the business.
Corporate philanthropy also improves employee wellbeing.
A landmark study by the University of Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre covering 50,000 UK employees across 250 companies showed Volunteering was the only intervention that showed a clear, statistically significant improvement in employee wellbeing, increasing job satisfaction, lower stress levels and enhanced teamwork.
ISSUE 7 45