Best Corporate Social Responsibility Scheme
WINNER
BT & #DiscoverDisabilityFootball – Cake
Para and disability football is a key focus within BT’s transformational 4-3-3 sponsorship strategy as lead partner of the England, Wales, Scotland & Northern Ireland Football Associations.
With over 14 million disabled people in the UK, disability football receives little or no exposure and has been overlooked or ignored by audiences and sponsors.
Using UN recognised ‘International Day of Persons with Disabilities’ as a key moment to leverage, BT launched a platform and positive call-to-action #DiscoverDisabilityFootball through a ground-breaking partnership with Reach PLC.
Objectives: Increase awareness & profile of disability football, educate fans & UK public, drive conversation, inspire participation & future talent.
Highlights:
Campaign delivered across print, online, social & podcast media, nationally and regionally, reaching 3.67 million adults
Back page sports cover takeover with 5 different creatives across 2 national and 26 regional titles, placed disability football where mainstream football news would typically be for the first time
#DiscoverDisabilityFootball received 121 mentions, and delivered 30.2 million impressions
The campaign drove an increase of 218% in conversation around disability football compared to the previous 7 days and 118% vs 2019
A number of direct enquiries about disability football to FA’s as a result of the campaign
SILVER
West Ham United FC
This ambitious project sees each of the men’s, women’s and Academy players acting as ambassadors for an area of community work which is important to them personally, to create life-changing experiences which bring hope, inspire change and deliver opportunities.
Priorities are based on addressing challenges and offering local solutions, with eleven key pillars spanning: health and wellbeing, loneliness, poverty, careers, learning, youth, equality, local enterprise, sporting ambition, community engagement and environment.
All of the Club’s Board, workforce and players have passionately bought into these eleven strands, from Club Captains Mark Noble and Gilly Flaherty working to tackle poverty, to Kate Longhurst and Arthur Masuaku fighting loneliness, to Ben Johnson and Nor Mustafa promoting equality.
Feedback has been outstanding, with quantitative and qualitative evidence showing that beneficiaries have felt inspired by meaningful player engagement and also encouraged to overcome obstacles and fulfil their potential.
In commemoration of its second anniversary in November 2020, the Club announced that it is on track to deliver the pledges made a year earlier which included £10million for the community, an increase of £5m on its initial pledge, giving a forecasted investment of £28m by the end of 2021.
BRONZE
Everton in the Community – The People’s Place
Mental health is an increasing and challenging issue within our society; suicide kills 113 people across Merseyside each year. Everton in the Community has a responsibility to effect change and in 2018/19, the charity launched its most ambitious fundraising campaign yet, The People’s Place, to build a permanent mental health facility in the shadows of Goodison Park.
With a projected fundraising target of more than one-million-pounds, the charity will build and develop a purpose-built facility that will become a delivery site for the charity’s existing mental health programmes and enable signposting to other services such as suicide awareness and prevention.
And now, two years on since the fundraising campaign was first launched Everton in the Community is soon to break ground on The People’s Place and was successfully awarded planning permission from Liverpool City Council for The People’s Place in May 2020 with work set to commence on the Spellow Lane site in Spring 2021.
The need for this purpose-built facility is greater now than ever before as the coronavirus pandemic has amplified many of the associated risk factors for poor mental health and suicide. Everton in the Community’s 13-year track record in delivering high-quality mental health provision – along with the charity’s ability to respond rapidly – provides a strong basis for suicide prevention. The services and support that the facility will offer is continually evolving as Everton in the Community works to ensure that suitable provision is available to those who need it most
