Community projects across the UK are providing vital help and support to people and animals in need. There are thousands of community organisations, charities and groups across the country offering their services 24 hours a day, and many of them rely solely on fundraising and donations.
Fortunately, there are many ways we can all get involved and help, sometimes with very little effort on our part. Enter mobile phone company giffgaff. One of over 2,000 UK companies with B Corp status, it has been certified as a company dedicated to being responsible and improving its social and environmental impact, and one of the ways it ensures it is improving its social impact at the level of base is through your recovery scheme.
giffgaff customers (known as “members”) can earn recovery points in a variety of ways, from inviting friends to join the network to helping the rest of the community. Then, twice a year, these points can be redeemed, used as credit, or donated to charity, and if you choose to donate your points, giffgaff will match your donation pound for pound. “Payback is one of the most interesting projects we can be part of,” says Roxy Baciu, giffgaff community director. “It allows us to bring our values to life in a genuine and relevant way.”
You want to know more? Here are three regional community projects that the giffgaff community has supported so far.
Hampshire Search and Rescue
Rescue volunteering is incredibly important work, so it’s great to know that Hampshire Search and Rescue received 10% of total donations from giffgaff members matched by giffgaff.
There are Lowland rescue groups operating across the UK and volunteers are on duty for the police 24/7, every day of the year. This round-the-clock availability means they can be rapidly deployed to search for vulnerable missing people in greater numbers than are possibly available within police forces, making them a vital resource.
Volunteers have to train for a maximum of six months, so it is a commitment, but a worthy one. “We know each other, we work well together and we look out for each other,” says Hampshire vice-president Trevor Vidler.
Hampshire Search and Rescue has been called 19 times so far in 2024. Neighboring counties can ask search and rescue communities to send reinforcements, with Dorset and Wiltshire often asking Hampshire for reinforcements.
As for how Hampshire plans to spend its giffgaff donation, Vidler says, “Our vehicles are stored in the south of the county and sometimes it takes us a while to get the equipment we need up north, so this money will help.” purchase and equip another 4×4 which will be maintained in North Hampshire. “This will significantly shorten the time it takes us to get to the scene when we are needed in the area.”
Thames Valley Positive Support
Created in 1985, in the early years of what would become the AIDS epidemic, Thames Valley Positive Support (TVPS), which received 5% of total giffgaff member donations matched by giffgaff, was initially established to support people living with HIV and AIDS in the Slough/Windsor area.
Today, as well as continuing to support people coming to terms with an HIV diagnosis, helping them connect with others affected by the virus and offering advice on debt, benefits and housing, TVPS also provides a space for the wider LGBTQ+ community to meet locally. “This group had nowhere to gather where they could be themselves,” says Sarah Macadam, executive director of TVPS. “We created this safe space for anyone to come and socialize, and it has since evolved into peer-to-peer support and advice.”
The charity has found that peer support is by far the most popular and effective service it offers, also allowing people to seek advice outside of traditional working hours. “Being someone who offers peer support can be a very enriching and rewarding experience,” says Macadam. Funds received from giffgaff will be spent on training and travel costs for people who want to become peer supporters: half for people living with HIV and half for the LGBTQ+ community.
Animals in need
As with other organizations giffgaff customers have donated to, Animals in need It relies entirely on donations to maintain its services, so was delighted to receive 40% of total donations from giffgaff members matched by giffgaff.
Animals in Need rescues domestic and wild animals in Northamptonshire and provides rehabilitation services at its base, Pine Tree Farm. “After Covid, they were younger animals, but now we rescue more older animals with medical conditions that require more complex care,” says Marketing and Communications Manager Louise Smith.
The voluntary organization rehabilitates and rehomes dogs (of which it currently has around 50), cats, farm animals and wild animals such as hedgehogs. The goal of their work is always to get animals on the road to recovery and back to their homes or the wild.
The giffgaff money will be used on a number of ongoing projects at the farm: re-roofing part of the kennels in the dog medical and isolation block and improving the dog sensory garden, which provides rescue dogs with training enrichment with different textures.
Discover more ways giffgaff is “doing good” at giffgaff.com