When CSR becomes more than just a buzzword and part of a culture
When one of our BDO employees, Jon Peache, tragically passed away in January 2013, this inspired those in his team to raise money for bowel cancer in his memory. A chance conversation this year led to that idea growing beyond just one team raising money for just one charity, to all five tax teams in our London office teaming up across five days to raise money for five different charities, all chosen by our staff for very personal, heartfelt reasons. CSR is often bandied around as something that big companies should do, but in choosing to support charities that we all really care about, we are hoping for our inaugural London Tax Group Charity Week to be a big success. It’s more than a buzzword to us: it’s part of our unifying culture.
From Monday 11 September to Friday 15 September, we will be holding lots of fundraising events for our staff including a Bake Off, treasure hunt, cycle challenge and quiz night at a fabulous museum in the heart of central London. It’s the first time we’ve tried to do anything on this scale and we would love your support in proving we were right to aim high!
Our 5 chosen charities
Why we chose our 5 charities
Our employees were invited to nominate charities, before they were put to a vote. The results were quite close in some tax teams, but our CM&A staff voted overwhelmingly to support mental health charity, Mind. We all had our personal reasons for getting behind this great cause and one of the employees in my team, Wendy Bond, summed these up particularly well.
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My mother suffered with serious mental health problems all her life and others close to me have illnesses. Funding is very much overlooked and more resources are needed to ensure people get the support they need.
It came as little surprise that our PCS employees once again wanted to do something to support The Bobby Moore Fund for Cancer Research, which was set up by Stephanie Moore to fund pioneering, life-saving bowel cancer research. The fastest cyclist taking part in our sponsored bike challenge will not only win glory, but the Jon Peache Prize, a special trophy that will be presented by Jon’s parents. We are so very grateful to them for coming to our prize giving ceremony and providing that extra motivation to our sponsored cyclists. We are hoping to collectively cycle the distance to Dublin, which some of us will definitely find harder than others, making that motivation all the more welcome!
NRAS, The MS Society and The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity also drew support from staff?in CIT, HC and REV who had been personally affected by arthritis, muscular sclerosis and cancer.
Please support us – we’re cycling to Dublin!
If you would like to contribute to our fundraising activities, our Virgin Money Giving page can be found here: https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=LTGCharityWeek. If one of your BDO contacts is taking part in the cycle challenge, do please give them a shout out when donating (it will be such a mental boost) but we will of course be very grateful for donations in support of the week more generally. We will split all proceeds equally between our chosen five charities, so in donating, you will be helping further the work of both physical and mental health charities who are supporting those with the conditions, their loved ones, and funding research into finding a cure.
Tax advisers never stop thinking about tax
Given the week has been organised by tax professionals, it would be remiss to not mention how you could make your donation more tax efficient. If you are generous enough to donate and you are a UK taxpayer, please do tick the box for Gift Aid when making payment! It will let us claim an extra 25p for every ￡1 you donate and is easy to do. No donation is too small (or too big!) and our five chosen charities will be eternally grateful for your support, as will we.