At Christmas time, we donated €100,000 to causes that are most important to our people. #impactthatmatters
Given the impact of COVID-19 on the not-for-profit sector, we opted to redirect funds that would traditionally have been used for internal celebration events at Christmas time, and instead donated to the causes that meant the most to our people – cancer and mental health.
In December, given the circumstances we found ourselves in – unable to meet and connect in person – we made the decision to redirect some of the funds usually set aside for Christmas party events to a number of charitable causes. We had just completed a strategy redesign and gathered our people’s feedback on the impact we were making in our community, and the top three themes identified were cancer support, mental health, and homelessness.
As we had already raised in excess of €100,000 for a number of homeless charities, including Focus Ireland’s Shine a Light Night, we made the decision to direct 80% of the additional €100,000 firm donation to the other two core themes identified by our people; cancer support and mental health, with the funds being directed to educational initiatives to ensure alignment with our WorldClass ambition, to positively impact people’s lives through education, skills building and access to opportunity. |
Following a review process, The Marie Keating Foundation and A Lust for Life were chosen as the beneficiaries of the €80,000 fund.
The funds were directed to the further roll out of A Lust for Life’s Schools Programme, with the donation coming at a vital time for the organisation to secure the final funding required to achieve their strategic objectives. The funds also support the delivery of the Marie Keating Foundation School Cancer Awareness Programme, enabling secondary school students to learn how to reduce their risk of cancer and how to spot the signs and symptoms early, as well as bespoke educational sessions with marginalised group’s all around the country.
A further €20,000 was put to a People’s Choice vote, where our people joined a live webinar hosted by Harry Goddard to vote on the charities and causes they wanted to see supported at Christmas time. The results from this meant that our donation supported charities and causes across the breadth of the not-for-profit sector from animal and environmental charities, to hospitals, hospices, children’s charities as well as diversity and inclusion charities supporting the most vulnerable in our society in regions local to our offices but also national organisations to ensure we could make as big an impact as possible.
This donation supported our ambition to impact 100 million lives globally by 2030 through education, skills building and access to opportunity for those from marginalised communities.
We are delighted at the Marie Keating Foundation to have received this funding from Deloitte to work with some of the underserved communities who have remained very much in isolation during the pandemic. Not only has this funding allowed us to reach out directly to both communities online, it has also allowed us to produce resources to connect on a national level, extending the projects reach.
Director of Nursing Services, Marie Keating Foundation
"Parents have been in touch to say that as soon as the Lust for Life Programme began, they saw their children relax a little more. Isolation from their friends and activities has had the most impact on them. Lust for Life has given them the necessary tools to deal with the situation they find themselves in right now. Thank you so very very much."
School Principal,
A beneficiary of the A Lust for Life's Schools Programme
