Why support a charity?

Perhaps this is because why you support a charity is a very personal decision. In many instances it is personally motivated, a loved one or friend is struck by something you never previously thought would touch your life and now you want to help. Some people donate because animals can be cute!

What The Guardian and the Charities Aid Foundation did find was this:

Charitable giving by country: who is the most generous?

On a global scale the UK does “ok” in terms of how much we give each year. What is clear however is that we could do much more! Only 73% of the adult population of the UK donated money once to a charity during 2010 and only 29% have done any volunteering. Proportionately this puts us behind Holland, Ireland, Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia and the United States. In terms of actual cash donated we are joint with Thailand, which puts the UK to shame - our economy is 7 times the size of Thailand’s!

In the US 7.4% of household income is given to charity vs. just 1.2% in the United Kingdom – this has to change!

This knowledge made Bibendum re-think our internal benefits system. Over and above what we do for our company charity we have given each of our staff the opportunity to “give as you earn”, donating a % of your gross income to a charity, direct from salary. We recommend you pester your company bosses to do the same!

Why does Bibendum support a charity?

Because it’s the right thing to do. No matter how challenging things may seem in business, we’re in business and there are so many people less fortunate than us. We are sadly not in a position as a business to donate large sums of money to charity; all we have to offer is the effort, time and care of our incredibly hard working team. We do everything we can to help individuals or groups within Bibendum to put on some major annual events, and we give each member of our team a paid day's leave each year to work with or fundraise for a charity of their choice.

Whatever your reasons for supporting a cause are, we thank you for your help, because no matter how little you earn, every single penny counts.