A big part of that is the work we do in our communities. Here's more about how we’re contributing and giving back to the region that we’re part of.

Since 2002 we’ve raised £196,872.19 for charities in our region. We’ve done that through regular donations, volunteering and fundraising, including with events, team activities and individual challenges.

Here are all the details of our most recent charity work.

Giving back through our business activities

Best Employers Eastern Region 2023

Thanks to the success of our 2023 Best Employers’ employee engagement programme, we raised over £16,000 for East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA). That’s the highest total since we started in 2012.

EAAA were our charity of the year for Best Employers. This donation came from organisations that took part in the programme, ticket sales from the launch and awards conferences, and a charity raffle on the day of the awards. We also worked with EAAA to set up a ‘Clear the clutter’ clothing drop at our launch conference, where people could drop off old clothes, shoes, handbags, belts and the like. For every tonne of clothing recycled, EAAA get at least £200.

As well as being our charity of the year, EAAA also took part in Best Employers, and are using their survey results to transform their people and culture. Because Best Employers is a not-for-profit programme, they got to do that for free, as did another 15 charities keen to put employee engagement at the heart of their organisations.

Our Christmas cards

Instead of posting Christmas cards to our clients in 2023, we sent ecards, then donated £50 to each of the following charities:

• our Cambridge office – Woodgreen Pets Charity
• our Norwich office – Leeway Domestic Violence and Abuse Services
• our Ipswich office – Suffolk Accident Rescue Service (SARS)
• our Chelmsford office – Trust Links.

Giving back through our development programmes and events

Development programmes

The People Leaders Lab is our newest programme of events. We created it to bring HR professionals together to discuss a variety of topics. But we also want it to contribute to our charitable work – so we donated the ticket sales to two local charities. They were:

• Illuminate, an organisation working to challenge the stigma of talking about mental health and wellbeing, and
• Arthur Rank Hospice Charity, which helps people in Cambridgeshire with serious illnesses or life-limiting conditions, as well as those in need of end-of-life care.

We also did the same for our HR Development Programme, which brings HR professionals from across the eastern region together to learn from each other, hear from great speakers and build their networks. This time the money from ticket sales went to Home-Start, a charity helping families with young children through challenging times.

Events

In April 2024, we hosted two quiz nights of friendly rivalry and fundraising. In Cambridge, 13 teams made up of 78 quizzers sat down to fight it out over eight rounds of questions. In Ipswich, 125 people split in to 25 teams put on their thinking caps to go head-to-head. We’re delighted to report that the Cambridge quiz raised over £1,000 for Woodgreen Pets Charity, while our Ipswich quizzers brought in almost £2,500 for SARS.

We also teamed up with the Papworth Trust to run a free webinar for our region’s Best Employers on how to become Disability Confident. This scheme has helped 11 million employees across the UK, with 19,040 employers having signed up – 184 of which are in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. So we were really pleased to have played our part in raising the profile of becoming Disability Confident in our region. Plus, we became a Disability Confident employer too.

Giving back our time

We give our people a day a year to work together on a project for a charity. In July 2023, our Ipswich team spent their day volunteering at one of Ormiston Families’ sites. And in September 2023, our Norwich team used their volunteering day at Banham Zoo to get stuck into some site maintenance.

We walked for charity and trees

In May 2024, we ran a steps challenge during Mental Health Awareness Week, to help us get outdoors and move more for our mental health. We did this with the help of a charity called Treekly, who turn footsteps into forests, with every tree planted helping to combat climate change. 28 people took part, doing laps of our offices. The final step total for the week was 1,497,370, completed in just under four laps. This means we’ll be planting 32 trees in total.

We’re always encouraging our people to do their bit individually too. So after they’ve been with us for two years, they can ask for time off to complete a charity challenge. We’ll even get them started with a donation of £250. In July 2024, it was Sarah Freeman’s turn, a Consultant in our Chelmsford office. She did the Northumberland Coastal Challenge Walk to raise money for Chelmsford’s charity of the year, Trust Links, an independent organisation aiming to improve mental health, wellbeing and the environment in Essex. The walk was a 26-mile (42km) marathon starting at the beautiful Budle Bay and ending in the coastal village of Alnmouth. Sarah raised a fantastic £526, which Trust Links are putting towards life-changing mental health projects.

We drank tea for Trust Links

In August 2023, Rachel Thorogood and Laura Turner went to one of Trust Links’ summer tea parties, to see how the garden they’d previously helped transform on a volunteering day was progressing. Rachel said: ‘It was lovely to see the difference the volunteers made to the therapeutic gardens. Lots of giant pumpkins and strawberries are growing!’

Why is this important to us?

We connect people every day. It’s a big responsibility and something we do very successfully. As a business, we want to be at the forefront of positive market-leading changes and improvements – to the workplace, the environments and communities we’re part of, and to the world as a whole. That’s why we do so much work for our local charities.

It’s also the reason we’ve created our environmental, social and governance statement. It’s going to help us continue to build a business for the future, while driving positive change in everything we do.

If you'd like to find out more about our ESG approach, please talk to Paul Sheldrake, paul.sheldrake@prs.uk.com, 01473 250990.  

If you'd like to talk to us about supporting your charity, email marketing@prs.uk.com.