Charity partners
In 2018 we chose a selection of UK and international charities to partner with until 2021.
The charities, which were chosen by our people, support causes that resonate with who we are as a business and have an impact in the countries where we operate.
Our targets are:
+ Inspiring young people to be more active
+ Empowering disadvantaged communities
SportInspired
SportInspired tackles childhood obesity in disadvantaged communities through fun and inclusive sports programmes for schools. We will be supporting sports festivals and outreach programmes in four UK locations: Blackburn, London, Nottingham and Sunderland.
Panathlon
Panathlon provides sporting opportunities for over 17,500 young people with disabilities each year. Our partnership will enable the expansion of Panathlon’s swim programme to involve over 5,000 disabled swimmers and more than 1,000 young leaders over three years.
The British Council
The British Council supports economic empowerment through educational opportunities. We’ll be supporting the development of online learning resources that enable more young people, especially women, in Thailand to access the craft sector.
Unitas Youth Zone
Unitas Youth Zone is an incredible twenty first century youth centre and registered charity, providing a safe, happy and open environment for disadvantaged young people near our HQ in North London. We’ll work with them to champion the next generation, providing mentoring support to help build employability skills.
charity: water
charity: water brings clean and safe drinking water to people in developing countries. We’ll work with charity: water to carry out projects in India and Cambodia – two of our sourcing markets – and bring clean water directly to local communities
Donating products
In 2020, we donated 25,000 products to our charity partners, who then distributed them to those most in need or repurposed them to create something new. We’re really pleased that, so far, we’ve been able to donate 24,652 products to charities including In Kind Direct and Oxfam.
Since we made our first donation to In Kind Direct in 2001, we’ve supported 1,976 charities with £2.8 million in value of donated products.