At Alliance Boots we firmly believe in the importance and value of helping good causes. This conviction is consistent with our identity and who we are as a group. Our people across all our business units are encouraged to support and raise money for local and national charities. Whenever they give up their time and make the effort to raise funds, we try and support their generosity as much as we can.
Some examples of our fundraising efforts are included below:
Within the Group, we have a long history of championing charitable and community activities. For example, we continue to make it easier for our Boots UK employees to give generously by introducing payroll giving schemes. This provides a simple, tax-efficient way for them to make donations as regularly as they would wish to. In the UK approximately 4% of Boots employees contributed to Give As You Earn schemes.
The Boots UK ‘Make The Difference’ initiative encourages employees who have raised money for charity to apply for matched funding from Boots UK up to a maximum of £500. During 2010/11 approximately 470 employees benefited from a “Matched Giving Scheme”, where the company made contributions of £167,000.
Partnerships are key to the way we operate and in September 2010, Boots UK launched a new charity partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support. Together we are developing a range of initiatives, including volunteering and fundraising, with the ambition that within three years, everyone in the UK will have access to the best cancer information and support in their community.
In the USA, the team based in Connecticut have established links with the American Cancer Society, where they visit as a team quarterly and support the provision of materials to families who are coming to terms with cancer in their family.
In France, a total of 59 participants from Alliance Healthcare France’s Paris headquarters and warehouse took part in the Odysséa Race, France’s foremost charity race in the fight against breast cancer. Donations raised went to the Gustave Roussy Institute (the first breast cancer research centre in Europe).
The funds raised by our associate Alliance Healthcare in its Christmas raffle 2010 were donated to the Associazione Italiana per la Lotta al Neuroblastoma – Italy’s charity devoted to combating Neuroblastoma, one of the most common cancers affecting children under five.
Cancer charities which support women remain of huge importance to Alliance Boots, particularly given that women represent such a large proportion of our employees across the Group.
ANZAG Girls’ Cups are girls’ football tournaments promoted by ANZAG, together with pharmacists and renowned Bundesliga clubs from the different regions.
Between March 2010 and March 2011 the Girls Cup was staged in five large German cities. A total of 2,300 young girls played for the ANZAG Girls Cup. In many cities the tournaments became a football festival for families, friends and visitors. The purpose of the initiative is to motivate girls and young women to take part in more physical activity as well as build their self-confidence and social skills.
The ANZAG offices in the five tournament regions were actively involved in the tournaments as hosts: many employees got involved – from the search for sponsors through to tournament organisation and a warm welcome for the girls’ teams on the pitch. At every Girls Cup ANZAG also had strong partners: leading Bundesliga clubs such as FC Bayern München and/or Bayer 04 Leverkusen, as well as pharmacists from the respective region. The pharmacists took over more than 170 health sponsorships for the teams and provided them with professional first-aid boxes.
ANZAG launched the Girls Cup in 2008, in the run-up to the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2011 in Germany. It is now one of the biggest girls’ football tournaments in Germany. ANZAG has always been committed to community health promotion and projects targeting children and teenagers have always been a top priority.
Teams in Thailand donated one million baht (over £20,000) from money collected in stores to an orphanage in Lopburi – about three hours north of Bangkok. 50 head office and managerial employees visited the orphanage, which houses 86 children. As well as making their donation, employees took the opportunity to teach the children how to make organic dishwashing liquid and presented the children with a variety of charitable gifts including food, toys and clothes.
2010 was the first year of Boots UK’s three-year partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support, which aims to improve access to Macmillan’s information and support services and realise Alliance Boots’ ambition to improve the lives of people living with cancer. By working together, we will deliver more ways for people to access information about living with cancer on the high street, in local communities and online.
Macmillan is a source of support for those living with cancer today. They provide practical, emotional, medical and financial support and campaign for better cancer care. During the first year of the partnership Boots assisted in raising nearly £2.5 million for the charity through a number of initiatives including the sale of specially designed merchandise and colleague fundraising. Most notably, has been the success of the ‘Miles for Macmillan’ events with over 6,000 Boots UK colleagues taking part in this form of fundraising activity. In 2010/11 over 600,000 Macmillan cancer information leaflets and 35 million dispensing bags with Macmillan information were distributed to all Boots UK stores. Nationally we have trained over 3,600 of our pharmacists in cancer awareness. We have piloted and evaluated a range of Macmillan initiatives in 18 Birmingham stores. We supported a Macmillan Awareness Week with over 100 Macmillan Information Specialists providing advice in stores, promoted by Macmillan messages in windows alongside a nationwide promotion on selected toiletries and baby products that included a Macmillan donation.
If you have questions about living with cancer, visit www.macmillan.org.uk
In the second year of its charity partnership with the Irish Hospice Foundation (IHF), Boots Ireland has doubled its first year fundraising target of €100,000 and raised €200,000 for the Children’s Hospice Homecare programme. Now entering into its third year, the team at Boots Ireland aim to further support the Children’s programme with several individual fundraising initiatives across stores.
The main event was a dating event entitled ’Take me out’, held in a popular nightclub. Male volunteers were selected from local sporting clubs and chose from 20 girls who had raised money through sponsorship. Charity buckets were present on the bars and the night club donated a proportion of its takings from the evening. The local community really got behind the event and it was lots of fun.
The IHF is a non-profit organisation that has been in existence for over twenty years and is well recognised for the great support they provide for terminally ill people. They truly value the support of Boots Ireland and its commitment to a very important children’s palliative care programme.
Sharon Foley, Chief Executive Officer of the IHF said: “Without the support of Boots Ireland, the IHF would not be able to fund this hugely important children’s palliative care programme. It truly is heartening to see the efforts that staff are putting into this partnership and the support is truly very much appreciated, thank you.”