It was a special day to be appointed Charity of the Year by Cpl UK. They run fundraising campaigns and help us raise awareness of our charity by sharing our news with their network. Furthermore, they provide business support. This is invaluable. Like all small charities, we acknowledge there are gaps in our skill sets. Our relationship with Cpl UK is like having a range of consultants to hand. It’s marvellous and is making a huge difference.
Business support in many forms
We have had a very positive experience with business support. One recent example is a LinkedIn Masterclass by Tamara Corcoran. To explain, the aim of the session was to introduce After Umbrage to new audiences during Carers Week.
The need is to meet like-minded people who relate to the challenges unpaid carers face, daily. These might be people with lived experience of caring themselves. They will have witnessed the toll that caring for a loved one can take on a person. Often this person is a close friend or relative. It is vital to our future to meet people whose lives have been affected by caring. It means we broaden our network. In turn, this means that we can fundraise more effectively and earn more philanthropic donations. We win more grant funding and take more paid for bookings at Kingham Cottage. This is our route to a sustainable future and Cpl UK plays a big part in it.
Business support for information management reporting
The field of Information Management is another example of business support from Cpl UK. For example, Amanda Da Silva – who is an expert in data migration across different systems and Customer Relationship Management – is advising us on how to extract management information from our data. The aim is to assist our funding applications, trustee reporting, and social media content. The effect of this will be to save time, increase efficiency and demonstrate the social impact of our work. Ordinarily, this consultancy would be far beyond our reach. Amanda is a terrific volunteer.
Cpl employees are ambassadors
Our partnership with Cpl UK means that their audience becomes ours. Indeed, many employees of Cpl UK are now ambassadors of our charity. They engage with our content across social media platforms and share it with their network. It takes little time, yet the impact is huge and vital. We thank everyone at Cpl who has become an ambassador in this way.
Creative fundraising
The team we liaise with at Cpl are great listeners. They know how important the personal touch is to our charity. They took this knowledge and reflected it in their fundraising project created for Random Act of Kindness Day. To illustrate, employees wrote personal messages to our beneficiaries on postcards that await them when they arrive for their free break at our holiday cottage. The feedback we’ve had from beneficiaries is terrific. They feel welcome from the moment they arrive at the cottage. Importantly, it makes them feel noticed and valued. These are rare experiences for unpaid carers who are often referred to as the invisible army.
Alignment of values
Early on in our relationship, Cpl UK and After Umbrage acknowledged that our values are aligned. Kindness and integrity are at the heart of both our organisations. We think this alignment is crucial to our successful partnership and we are in gratitude to Cpl UK and Yvette Cleland, CEO at Cpl Life Sciences for taking the leap of confidence in us. We hope to inspire other organisations seeking to make a difference to communities in need, such as unpaid carers. Building these partnerships is life-changing for the charity and influences corporate culture very favourably. Don’t just take our word for it.
“We are delighted to be supporting such an incredible charity, After Umbrage, which is making a real difference to those caring for loved ones. With a rise in the number of unpaid carers over the past 2 years, we are really looking forward to working with After Umbrage and raising funds for those in need. The healthcare industry is not only a great focus for us as a business, but our candidates and colleagues from a corporate and social perspective. The charitable work that After Umbrage provides makes a real difference to carers and has a positive influence within our internal organisation knowing we can support in 2022! “ said Affi Khan, CEO, Cpl UK – Tech & Health.
Daniel Patterson, Head of Marketing, Cpl UK is a champion for After Umbrage. He has created a selection of fundraising events for us across the calendar of months including Halloween, Christmas and Easter events. With the Marketing Team, including Tamara they have engineered fundraising initiatives that have employee engagement, fun, and kindness at the heart of them.
Exciting future
In partnership with Cpl UK, After Umbrage has a great future. We are meeting new unpaid carers, taking holiday cottage paid bookings, and meeting new supporters. We are excited about where the next six months together will take us. Thank you Cpl UK for believing that a partnership with our small charity would have a positive impact on your work culture. We hope we have illustrated just how positive our experience is proving to be.